The beginner's guide to art supplies, for the artist on a budget

So you're thinking of giving drawing a crack. You totally should! You never know, you might be great at it. Even if you're 'bad' at first, there's nothing more humbling than looking at a terrible piece of art that you created. And being humble is character building. Or so I'm told.

Anyway, the first thing that you need to do if you want to try drawing - or any form of visual art - is to buy supplies. If even thinking of going into an art store makes your bank account cry, then never fear - I'm here to tell you the secret hack to drawing on a budget. Are you ready?

...drawing is really cheap. Like, really cheap. Like, setting yourself up with a fantastic collection of drawing supplies can ring in at under $100*

*disclaimer - I'm talking about your run-of-the-mill graphite artist set-up. If you're on a budget, don't even look at the cost of good-quality colour pencils or paints or canvases or easels. They'll hurt your soul.

Right! Back to it. Here are the things you'll need to get started:

1. Pencils (duh)

2. Paper (revolutionary, I know)

3. Blending stumps

4. Kneadable eraser

5. Pencil sharpener (more important than you think)

6. A3 Portable light pad

7. Tissues. Yes, like for your nose.

If you're a newbie (welcome!) then even that list might be intimidating/confusing. This blog is a *safe space* so let's break it down.

1. Pencils

Graphite pencils are a fancy way of saying grey lead. Yep, like the grey leads that you used before you got your pen licence. You know that code that was embossed onto the sides of them?

Those are their darkness grades. The greater the number, the darker the pencil:

HB-B-2B-3B-4B-5B-6B-7B-8B

If you're just starting out and you're trying to save some dollarydoos, you only need to invest in three pencils: a super-light HB for tracing outlines, a 2B or 4B to add dimension, and a 6B or 8B for the really dark areas/shading. Most art stores will sell pencils individually at around $3 each, but you can genuinely just use any grade pencil you find lying around the house or work. Seriously. There's so secret delineation between normal grey lead and artist graphite; for a beginner, they're all going to do the same thing.

Bonus: another great pencil to invest in (if you can) is a mechanical pencil, as the lead will always be super fine so is perfect for doing details like eyelashes or eyebrows. Officeworks has them for around $3 each .

Cost for pencils: $12

2. Paper

Your work is only ever going to be as good as the paper it's drawn on, so plain computer paper won't cut it here. There are two things to make sure you pay attention to when buying your first pad of art paper: the thickness (gsm) and the smoothness.

If you're mainly using your paper for drawing, you want ya gurl to be thicc - at least 200gsm. That means that you'll be able to do lots of layers and blending and detail without worrying that your pencil will tear through the paper.

If you're going to be drawing skin, or anything smooth (glass, latex, wood, etc), your paper also needs to be smooth. Your art is only going to look as smooth as the surface it's drawn on. Your paper should indicate whether it's smooth or not on the cover, but if you're unsure ask someone who works in the art store.

Cost for A4 pad of 200gsm smooth paper: $14

3. Blending stumps

Blending stumps are a tool I had literally no idea existed until I took a drawing class. Essentially, they're compressed rounds of paper that you can use to deposit graphite on the paper, or blend small areas, without needing to use a pencil first. In other words, you dip your blending stump into some darker graphite, and with the graphite now on the tip of your blending stump, it comes out a lot softer and easier to spread around without leaving distinct lines on the page.

The bloody great thing about blending stumps is that because they're made of compressed paper, they're dirt cheap to buy. A top-of-the-line packet of five will set you back around $8, but you can nab some on eBay for about $3 a pack. Quality isn't super important here - definitely spring for the cheap pack.

Cost for a pack of blending stumps: $3

4. Kneadable eraser

While you can definitely use the same pencils that you used in primary school, you'll need to say goodbye to your old, discoloured eraser (bonus points if it has YES and NO on either side) and upgrade to a kneadable eraser.

When you're an artiste, and you need to fix an error, you can't just go ham with a standard eraser because it'll end up getting more graphite where you don't want it, and it'll damage the paper. Kneadable erasers are a gentle way to lift the graphite off the paper without damaging it or your drawing. What's better - one will last you literal years and they're about $4 each and they're super fun to squish.

Cost of kneadable eraser: $4

5. Pencil Sharpener

Ah, if I had a dollar for every time I'd been too lazy to sharpen my pencils and immediately regretted it when the line was too fat for an eyelash or eyebrow hair I'd have at least enough money to buy myself a new pencil sharpener. With drawing, the devil really is in the details, so your number one friend is a pencil sharpener.

This is the only time I'll steer you to an actual art store instead of a stationery store (which is where you can get most of the things on this list), as you want your sharpener to be good quality, easy to empty, and not likely to get graphite shavings on your work (this has happened to me and tbh I still don't want to talk about it). A good-quality sharpener will leave your pencils sharp without breaking the lead. They're also not super expensive - the one I have was around $7.

Cost of sharpener: $7

6. A3 Portable light pad

This is the most expensive item on this list, but also the one which I absolutely have no regrets in purchasing and kind of wish I had known about sooner. In case you missed the news in my last post, tracing is not cheating when creating good art. Good? Good.

So, with that in mind, if you want to make sure the perspective of your image is correct, the easiest way to achieve that is by tracing the outline of your reference image using a light pad. Take a copy of your reference image and put it on the pad, put your paper on the top, turn the pad on, and voila! your reference image will shine through to the paper, allowing you to trace the outline perfectly. A secondary but still very important use for your light pad is a perfectly smooth surface to draw on.

Most light pads are USB operated, so you can plug them into a computer or phone charger to get them to work. To make sure you get your money's worth, buy this bad boy online. I bought mine a couple of years ago for around $40, and like I said, it was the best art investment I've made thus far.

HACK: if you don't have the money for a light pad, a sunny day and a window can work just as well for tracing outlines. Just make sure the sun is shining from behind the window when you're trying to trace.

Cost for Light pad: $40

7. Tissues

Yes. Tissues. Yes, any tissues. Possibly toilet paper if you're in a bind, but tissues will work better. Buy recycled tissues because #climatecrisis. Wrap a tissue around a finger and you have the quickest, most precise, and smoothest blending tool for large surfaces like skin.

Cost for tissues: $2

All up that brings our total cost to a whopping $82. See, I told you! While $82 can still be a lot to some, especially for non-essential items like art supplies, hopefully you'll see that these items can all be done on a budget, and you probably have some of them lying around anyway.

Happy shopping!

xx