My Art Supplies: Review

In this post I'm going to give you a run through of what art supplies I have and use and my thoughts on them as well as how I store them. My favourite material to use is marker or pencil.

Markers

Copic & Winsor And Newton Promarker: Skin tones

I'm starting with my favourite material.. Markers. I love working with markers but it can be hard to find a good budget friendly set. My absolute favs are Copic and Winsor & Newton but unfortunately they can be a bit tough on the purse strings so I tend to just buy skin tones with either of those brands as they are my most used colours throughout my work. The shades of copics I use are pictured below.

I use YR00 as a base then E21 and finally E31 for deep toning.

I have never seen Copic's being sold in Ireland. I bought mine when I was on holidays in New York but you can buy them pretty easily from their online store or a site like amazon.

Promarkers are the most affordable out of this selection and work just as well. I actually bought it by accident thinking it was Winsor & Newton because it was accidentally in the same stand. It like the others blends very well. I'm slowly building up a collection of these for my next year in college.

Tiger Markers:

I was so excited when Tiger got these beauties in stock! They come in a 3 pack of colours for 3 euro #bargain. They are so incredibly smooth but be warned they bleed through the paper a lot. I thought these markers were perfect (they are) but not for a long period of time. I have used some of mine on a few small drawings and they are already running out of ink and losing smoothness. I still think they are a great cheap option for the likes of fashion illustrations which don't usually take a lot of ink.

I store all these markers in a cute little pop up basket I bought in TheWorks store in Athlone Town Centre. I've seen similar in EuroStore's and pound shops, they are great for storage boxes etc. for my art bits.

My Random Unorganised Box Of Markers:

I just threw my random markers into this old makeup case. They were colour coded and wrapped in a loom band to keep them organised but clearly that's not the case anymore as I have very little patience.

I have 5 types of markers in this box aswell as 4 skinny Stadelter highlighters which are brilliant btw. The types I have are Sharpie's, No Brand (from Dealz), Staedtler Triplus Fineliner, Fabercastell and more no brand named from Euro Store. Sharpie's are Sharpie's, they're great for writing text with and colouring. I love the Staedtler Triplus Fineliners, I used them all throughout school and for lecture notes. They're also great for small detailing in a drawing and they come with a pretty good selection of colours and nice packaging. I don't even remember buying the no branded markers from Dealz they just seemed to always be in my art box but they too can be handy for small details and same colour variations. The fabercastell markers are a great buy! I bought a set of 12 for 5 euro in a schools supply shop in Dublin and they are so good. They're sort of like the next step up from Crayola markers.

Pencils

Fabercastell Polychromos:

I always used Crayola or plain Fabercastell pencils, I still do sometimes but these are my current favourites that I own. I am forever wishlisting Prismacolour pencils because they seem so amazing from the tutorials and Insta accounts I follow. However, I am happy with these pencils. They were well worth the 50 or 60 something euro I spent on them last year. They're very smooth to use and come in great shades to blend.

As you can see I use the black pencil a lot compared to the rest. I'd advice to buy another black and two shades of skin tones, one light and one tanned, to have as back ups as they will run out before the rest of the set if you're work is anything like mine.

Watercolour Pencils:

I don't use these or paints too often in my work apart from college assignment work. Watercolour pencils work really well though, I find them easy and quite quick to use if you are base colouring something. These aren't the best brands out there but they are perfect for someone like me who doesn't use them too often.

I'd never seen or heard of this set before until my cousin got them for me as a birthday present. They're really good and I love the small, compact tin they come in as it's great for transporting and for storage. They are from a brand called Conte.

I got these years ago in school and I love them. They are Lakeland Painting Pencils. I store them in this old plastic mug which I then use for a water tub when I'm using the pencils. They have more coverage than the previous set and are a good starting point.

Paints:

This is another old make up case transformed into my paint box. It opens up two compartments and stores everything perfectly, even my brushes fit into the makeup brush slot on the lid of the box.

I am not a big painter, I paint for college assignments and on random occasions where I feel experimental. I have only ever used these paints from Tiger and some from The Art And Hobby shop which were a gift. I have acrylic paints stored in a chocolate bar box from work (I work in Centra) they're great for paint storage, watercolour, gouache and oil paints stored in plastic bags. I bought 6 small tubs of fabercastell fabric paint to make my own t shirts and cushion patterns etc. I have yet to use them.

The puffy paint from Tiger is also a new purchase. They come individually so I bought one of each colour available which was green, pink, orange and blue. They're really cool, they are what they say in that they are puffy. They are not ideal for actual painting but rather more useful for lettering or outlining. I can't wait to use them for college assignments next year. I also have some glitter tubes from tiger that are the best glitter glues I've come across so far.