The Basic Important Tools for an Artist

On behalf of TVLesson.com, my name is Jacklyn Laflamme and I'm a professional artist. Let's talk a little bit about supplies that you’ll need to be an artist. I think the most important thing when starting off is to have a really great sketchbook. And sketchbooks come in all different sizes, in all different shapes and forms and you can just choose one that would be suitable for your needs, a bigger one if you're in your studio or small one if you want to carry it in your purse.

The other thing that’s very essential is to have some drawing pencils. And they also come in all sorts of different shapes and forms. You may want to have colored pencils. Maybe you prefer markers. But some sort of drawing tools so that you can constantly be sketching and writing out your ideas. It’s really, really important that when you have ideas as an artist that you put them down in your sketchbook for future reference. Along with pencils of course, you’ll need erasers and sharpeners. And then, once you want to get into painting, there are all sorts of different supplies you’ll need.

But the main thing would be canvas and you could either buy store-bought, stretch canvases or you could stretch your own canvas. The store-bought ones usually come pre-gessoed, so sometimes they are little bit easier. And then, you will need of course, different brushes, all different sorts and sizes depending on what type of paint you're going to use. There are different brushes for acrylic paint, watercolors and oil, oil paints and then you’ll need your paints.

Again, the different paints, there's acrylics and there's all sorts of different brands. And what I recommend is if you're just getting started, don’t go crazy and buy too many colors. You might want to buy a different color in each different brand so that you can try the different brands and the different types of paint whether you want to try watercolor, oils or acrylic. So my recommendation is just to go and a buy a little bit of a variety of everything and see what really works for you and what you really like.