My Favourite Art Supplies

When I discovered mixed media art, a whole world of experimentation and opportunity opened up to me. It brought freedom to my creative process. Suddenly, it wasn't so important to follow the rules. My art-making became more about following my curiosities and seeing what new discoveries I could make.

This continues to be my approach, and as a result, I go through seasons with my art supplies. There are times when I am all about watercolour and other times when it has to be rich, creamy acrylic. In general, though, these are the supplies that are never too far from my reach.

This post contains affiliate links, which means I may receive a small commission, at no cost to you, if you make a purchase through a link.

 Paper

My favourite paper is Arches Cold Press Paper. This is my go-to for both acrylic and watercolour-based pieces. Being a premium 100% cotton paper, it is a splurge, but you get what you pay for! It holds up well to wet media and has a slightly textured surface.

For quick studies, doodles, and swatches, I use Canson Mixed Media Imagine Paper. This paper is an affordable lighter-weight (200 gsm/180 lb) cartridge paper that works well with a variety of media. If you are feeling precious about your supplies, I would recommend a paper like this to help you loosen up.

I also love to work in journals and sketchbooks. A few of my favourites are by the Handbook Journal Company, Stillman & Birn and Moleskine.

 Panels/Canvas

For my medium-to-large works, I use cradled wood panels and gallery-wrapped pre-gessoed canvases. My main focus when choosing a substrate is to get something that is sturdy and will hold up to many layers of painting and experimenting. Current favourites include:

Stretched Canvases
My favourite sizes are 12” x 12” and 16” x 20” for smaller pieces, and 30” x 40” for large-scale paintings.

Wood Panels
Ampersand wood panels are fantastic as they are primed and ready to paint on. If you are on a budget, you can buy cheaper unprimed panels and prepare them yourself. Ampersand has instructions on how to do this here.

 Palettes

Over the years, I have used many different paint palettes, including baking trays, paper plates, takeaway container lids, and ceramic dishes. It can take a bit of experimentation to find the palette that works for you.

These days, I mostly use disposable palette paper for my acrylic paints and these adorable porcelain flower palettes for watercolour and acrylic ink. I often keep used sheets of palette paper and use them for colour and composition studies.

If you are working on a series or a big acrylic painting, it can be handy to mix up larger quantities of your colours and store them in airtight containers.

Watercolour Paint

Two words: Daniel Smith! As many of my students know, I like to treat myself to a Daniel Smith watercolour or two. They are expensive, but the vibrant colours and interesting effects are divine! Daniel Smith is particularly well known for creating granulating colours. Granulation occurs when paint pigments clump together and create interesting textures.

The Ultimate Mixing Set is a great set to get started with. You can also buy individual colours in tubes. A few of my must-haves are Indigo, Cascade Green, Transparent Red Oxide, Naphthamide Maroon, Autumn Mystery, and Fuchsite Genuine.

If you are new to watercolour, I would suggest trying a more affordable set first and seeing how you feel about the medium. Here are a few budget-friendly options that are popular with my students:

Van Gogh Watercolor
Winsor & Newton Cotman
Kuretake Gansai Tambi

 Acrylic Ink

Acrylic ink is one of my most-used supplies. The smooth, vibrant colours contrast well with the softer, granulating shades of watercolour. I also love adding white ink in to my watercolours to make the paint more opaque (almost like gouache).

If you are painting with acrylic paint, you can glaze over the top with acrylic ink to give the surface a luminous quality.

The fluidity of ink also makes it well suited to linework, lettering, and fine details, and if you prefer more organic, wobbly lines, you can draw directly with the dropper or dip a twig or skewer into the paint and use that to sketch out shapes.

I tend to gravitate to neutral colours and use two main brands; Daler-Rowney FW Acrylic Ink and Royal Talens Amsterdam Acrylic Ink. A few of my favourite colours are Burnt Sienna, Quinacridone Rose, Warm Grey, Antelope Brown, and Payne’s Grey.

 Acrylic Paint

Acrylic paints are popular with mixed media artists, as being water-based, they dry quickly and lend themselves well to layering. There are two main brands that I use.

I love the Australian brand Derivan Matisse and mostly use their Flow and Fluid paints. They have fabulous pre-mixed colours inspired by the Australian landscape, including Australian Salmon Gum, Australian Olive Green and Australian Sienna.

The other main brand I use is Golden. You really can’t beat the buttery consistency of Golden heavy-bodied paint; it’s exceptional! This Modern Theory Colour Mixing Set would be my suggestion to get started. Like Matisse, Golden also makes Fluid paints and these are brilliant for drips, glazes, fine details, and getting paint down quickly.

Both these acrylic paint brands are professional artist grade paints, which means they are highly pigmented. You can also get good quality student grade paints, such as Liquitex Basics or Winsor & Newton Galeria. They won’t be quite as lush, but they are excellent beginner paints.

 Mark-making Supplies (Pastels, Pens & Pencils)

When it comes to mark-making supplies, I tend to purchase individual colours rather than big sets. This gives me the opportunity to try out a supply before committing to it in a big way. It also means I can handpick the colours.

Sometimes a set will come up with a great price and colour selection and then I’ll go for it but otherwise, I am happy to slowly add to my collection.

A few of my favourites are:

Sennelier Oil Pastels
Super creamy and a little sticky, I use these in moderation. Just little flourishes in the final layer of my paintings. The colours are incredible!

Shiva Oil Paintstiks
These oil sticks dry in about 2 days, so they are a great way to experiment with oil paint. I use these over the top of acrylic to add marks and areas of rich, creamy colour to my work.

Mungyo Semi-hard Pastels
While I love soft pastels, they smudge very easily. For the work I do, I prefer the ones that sit at the firmer end of the spectrum, such as these ones. Another option would be Prismacolor Nupastels.

Compressed Charcoal
Great for letting go, embracing the mess and getting ideas down fast. Lately, I’ve been experimenting with using charcoal in the backgrounds of my acrylic paintings. Now I really want to get some water-soluble graphite.

Caran d’Ache Neocolor II Crayons
Oh, how I love these! When used dry, you can make intensely pigmented marks. They aren’t as soft as oil pastels or as chalky as soft pastels, and if you add water to them, they turn into watercolour paint.

Derwent Inktense Pencils
Vibrant and versatile! They can be used dry to make bold marks or wet to make washes. I use them in a similar way to Neocolor II crayons but because they are pencils you can get finer lines and details.

Faber-castell Polychromos Pencils
These are new to my collection, and I feel like they might be the perfect coloured pencil, or at least for me! They blend easily but also sharpen to a nice point and work well over acrylic paint as long as the paint is not too glossy.

Posca Paint Pens
For fine line work, you can’t beat paint pens. I’ve tried many brands and always seem to come back to Posca. I mainly use the ultrafine 0.7 mm tip in black, gold, and white. If you are using these over the top of acrylic paint or watercolour, make sure the underneath layer is completely dry, or else you will clog up the pen tip. It is also good to store them flat.

Sakura Pigma Pens
I’ve never met a Sakura Pigma pen I didn’t like. These beauties are archival, waterproof, and don’t tend to smudge or bleed through pages. I use them mostly for drawing and doodling.

 Brushes

All artists have their favourite brushes!

For watercolour, I use Princeton Neptune Brushes or else the more affordable Princeton Select brushes.

For acrylic, it depends on what effect I am going for. Royal and Langnickel Brushes are great for fluid layers and glazes.

For heavier-bodied paint, I prefer firmer brushes such as the long-handled Princeton Catalyst and the short-handled Dina Wakley Media brushes.

I mostly use flat and round/mop brushes in my work, but it is fun to experiment with different shapes and I always try and have a good range of sizes.

 Handy Tools

Aside from brushes, a few of my favourite tools include:

Princeton Catalyst Tools
I am a big fan of these and have a selection of their blades, wedges, and mini-blades. They are easy to clean and great for mark-making, textural effects, paint mixing, and adhering collage. If you don’t have these, you can also use old credit cards, combs, skewers, and kitchen utensils to create similar effects.

Palette Knives
Most of the time, I mix my colours with my brushes as I go, but if you want to thoroughly mix a colour it is best to use a palette knife. You can also skip brushes altogether and use palette knives to apply paint directly to your surface.

Spray Bottle
I often get asked about what is in my spray bottle. It’s just water! I use it to keep my surfaces and paints wet as I work and to encourage drippy effects.

 Collage Papers & Stencils

I always keep my eye out for potential collage papers. Often you don’t need to go out and purchase papers as there are things around the home that you can use like tissue paper, sewing pattern paper, old book pages, music sheets, newspaper cuttings and so on.

You can also purchase decorative handmade papers, including mulberry, rice, and lokta.

My personal preference is to use thin collage papers but if you prefer a more textured look, you can add heavier papers or even cardboard.

Lately, I have also been enjoying adding patterns and textures using stencils. StencilGirl Products has a brilliant range of artist-designed stencils.

 Mediums & Varnishes

There are many mediums and varnishes on the market. It can get overwhelming, so I will try and keep this brief and stick to the ones that I use the most. Here goes!

Liquitex Gesso
Gesso is used to prime and prepare painting surfaces. It adds tooth, which helps paint adhesion. You can get it in white, black, clear, and colours. You can purchase surfaces that are pre-gessoed, but it is useful to have gesso if you want to cover up and re-start a painting or if you want to work on unconventional surfaces such as cardboard and old vintage books.

Liquitex Gel Matte Medium
Gel Medium is a multi-purpose product. It can be used to add body to paint, increase transparency, adhere collage and seal mixed media artworks. I mostly use it as an adhesive.

Golden Glazing Fluid
This is one of my favourite products. I use it to create transparent glazes in my mixed media paintings. It also increases the working time of the paint so that the paint doesn’t dry out as fast.

Sennelier Oil Pastel Fixative
So far, this is the best fixative I have found for oil pastels. Oil pastels never fully cure, but a fixative will reduce the tackiness, making it easier to handle paintings without smearing them.

SpectraFix Pastel Fixative
I’ve been on the hunt for a non-toxic general-purpose fixative and this one ticks many boxes. You can use it on a wide variety of mediums, including charcoal, pastels, pencils, and watercolour. Like all fixatives, this one works best if you build it up with a few light layers.

Golden Archival Varnish
Varnishes are used as a final step to seal and protect your paintings. This varnish offers UV protection and comes in a range of finishes, including gloss, satin, and matte. The spray formulation is easy to apply, but you will need to wear a mask as it is toxic.

Dorlands Wax
I use this product in my sketchbooks to seal the finished pages and stop them from sticking together. All you need to do is pop a bit on a rag and buff it in, then leave it to dry. If you have water-soluble supplies, you will need to use a fixative first so that your page doesn’t smudge.

Well, that brings me to the end of my favourite mixed media supplies. This list is always changing, but these are the things that are currently bringing me joy. Of course, you don’t need to have all of these things. Part of the fun is getting creative with what you have and building your collection slowly over time.