Leda Art Supply Premium Sketchbook
Essential art supplies for painting: All you need to start
Included in this guide:
Art supplies may not make the artist, but they can elevate your art. Though it's tempting to cut corners financially, bargain basement equipment will not perform as well, with cheap paints looking lifeless and chalky when dry. Since you're spending your precious time perfecting on your art, you shouldn't sell yourself short with inferior tools. It may be an outlay at the beginning, but it's worth it in the long run.
The art materials market can be a minefield for the uninitiated, and the sheer number of choices available can appear overwhelming to say the least. This essential art supplies guide is designed to relieve the stress of kitting yourself out and help you choose the best equipment first time.
If you fancy some new pencils to use alongside the shiny new art supplies featured here, check out our guide to the best pencils around right now. Meanwhile, if it's just an easel you need, look at our picks for the best art easels.
- The best Copic marker Black Friday deals
01. Michael Harding Oil Paints
The best oil paints are expertly made in the UK
Reasons to buy
+Uses best pigments +Lovely buttery constancy
Reasons to avoid
-No student range -Not for a tight budget
Michael Harding started making his own oil paints in 1982 when he was studying fine art. Inspired by recreating the glorious colours in his favourite Rembrandt painting at the National Gallery, London, Harding went on to become a colour-master suppling oil paint across the world. His Michael Harding Oil Colour paints come in a comprehensive range of colours and a high pigment content, and less filler, means his paints retain vivid colour and are more light resistant. All this quality comes at a price, but it's a false economy to try and save money on cheap paints that yield poor results when dry. Your art is worth that little extra.
For more oil paints, see our best oil paints guide.
02. Winsor & Newton Foundation Brush Set
The best paintbrushes are perfect for beginners
Reasons to buy
+Cost effective +Great starter kit
Reasons to avoid
-Not top quality -Limited shapes and sizes
Choosing your first set of brushes can be a daunting task. Confronted with a myriad of manufacturers, different brush shapes, handle lengths and brush sizes can be overwhelming to say the least. A great place to start can be a pre-selected brush set from one of the best known names. This Winsor & Newton Series 7 brush set consists of two round brush in sizes 3 and 6, two filbert brushes in 3 and 6 and two flat brushes in 10 and 14. Synthetic brushes have come on a long way in the past 20 years and are a great mid point between traditional qualities of hog and sable bristles.
03. The Masters Brush Cleaner & Preserver
Keep brushes clean and in great shape with the best brush cleaner
Reasons to buy
+Saves forgotten brushes +Conditions and reshapes brushes
Reasons to avoid
-Not cheap -Smell could be nicer
We've all forgotten a paint brush from time-to-time and found it the next day dried and contorted. When your brushes are top-quality Rosemary & Co brushes this can be disastrous! Fear not tough, there is a miracle saviour available that, although expensive to buy, will soon pay for itself many times over. After cleaning brushes in Bartoline Clean Spirit, you can then use the Masters Brush Cleaner & Preserver soap to clear any remaining pigment from the bristles and reshape into its original form.
04. Large Deluxe Brush Washer
Give your brushes a thorough clean with a deluxe brush pot
Reasons to buy
+Clean brushes very well +Allows you to recycle clean spirit
Reasons to avoid
-Heavy for transporting -No lockable seal
Keeping your brushes clean and in good order is vital for successful results and for saving you a ton of money. The beauty of the metal brush washers such as this Academy JAS : Large Brush Washer Metal Deluxe is the perforated insert that allows you clean the bristles of the brush without swilling up the bottom of the pot. This allows the pigment to sink to the bottom and helps keep the spirit cleaner for longer. The clean spirit can be decanted and any sediment dredged from the bottom and disposed of correctly. The sturdy design stops it toppling over and the handy brush holder allows you to soak brushes without them becoming misshapen.
05. US Art Supply Medium Wooden H-Frame Studio Easel
Invest in a brilliant art easel
Reasons to buy
+Sturdy +Moveable +You can sit or stand
There are many types of easels available on the market and each style is designed for a different use. Some are designed to be portable for plein-air painting and others are collapsable and best suited for limited space. This U.S Art Supply H-Frame is a large easel, which is adjustable and flexible enough to serve all your needs in your studio. It has wheels so you can find the best light and move it accordingly, and there is built-in storage, too. This easel holds a canvas up to 48 inches.
06. Mijello Lidded Plastic Palette
Keep paint wetter for longer with the best artist's palette
Reasons to buy
+Saves time and money +Easily portable
Reasons to avoid
-Not cheap -Could be even bigger
It's good to spend a lot of time identifying and analysing colour when mixing, so you don't want to waste all that precious time allowing your mixes to dry out. A good option is airtight catering containers that are turned upside down and lined with glass so the lid becomes the mixing surface. Another, and perhaps easier, method is to invest in an airtight palette from Mijello. These cool little paint-savers allow you to keep mixes workable for weeks, which can be especially handy if you're fitting painting in around a busy schedule.
07. Winsor & Newton Cold Pressed Linseed Oil
The best linseed oil is the perfect match for good quality paint
Reasons to buy
+Adds gloss +Extends drying time
Reasons to avoid
-Not cheap -Bottle could do with a better spout
When you've invested in top-quality paint you don't want to add inferior mediums to spoil it. Artist quality mediums can seem overly expensive next to their hardware cousins but the difference can be vast. Cold pressed linseed oil is produced specifically so the oil is of a higher quality and more suited for use with oil paints. As 99 per cent of artist's oil paints on the market use linseed oil as their binder, oil such as this Winsor & Newton linseed oil is a popular medium. Although alternatives like Safflower oil can help increase the drying time. You can save a lot of money by buying in bulk volume.
08. Winsor & Newton Liquin Original
Speed up the drying time of oil paint with the best drying medium
Reasons to buy
+Retains body and colour of paint +Speeds up drying time
Reasons to avoid
-A bit smelly -Not cheap
One of the best qualities of oil paint, over acrylics or watercolours, is its slow drying time which gives you more time to push paint around. That said there are always instances where it would be advantageous for a layer of paint to be dry the next day and that's where Liquin Original comes in. Liquin Original is designed to speed up the drying time of paint without affecting its body or colour. This drying medium is also available in a thicker Liquin Impasto for Impressionistic styles and a thinner Liquin Fine Detail for more camera-like techniques.
09. MEEDEN 5-Piece Palette Knife Set
Make paint mixing easier with a good set of the best palette knives
Reasons to buy
+Good choice of shapes +Designed to last.
Reasons to avoid
-Hard wooden handles -Can scratch glass palettes
Painting with palette knives can give some very expressive results but its not a technique for the faint-hearted painter. Equally, a great set of palette knives such as MEEDEN set of five palette knives will serve you well while mixing your colours, although look out for metal tools scratching your glass-topped palette. The most important thing is the knife's construction. There is a tendency, even with the top manufacturers, to go for the cheaper process of welding the blade onto the arm of the knife. In our experience these welds nearly always snap so try and get the superior style where the blade and arm are made from a single piece of metal.
10. Winsor & Newton Artist's Water Colour Field Box
A complete watercolour paint set that's compact enough to fit in your pocket
Reasons to buy
+Includes 12 artist quality colours +Compact design.
Reasons to avoid
-Not much mixing space -Not cheap
Oil painting outside, or en plein air, can require you lugging around a lot of equipment. Watercolours can be a more portable choice for painting reference studies and colour examinations outside, and also a fun change of gear for an artist. This complete field set from Winsor & Newton includes 12 half-pans of Artist quality watercolour paint, a pocket brush, sponge, water bottle, water container and two small mixing palettes. We'd advise taking an additional larger palette strapped to your watercolour sketchbook and a few additional pocket-brushes, but otherwise you've got a complete Polly-esque painting kit that's small enough to fit in your pocket.
Read more:
- Art techniques: expert tutorials for painting and drawing
- How to clean paintbrushes: The definitive guide
- Essential painting techniques for artists
Rob Lunn is a self-taught painter, and loves to paint in oils. His influences are Vincent van Gogh, Caravaggio and Ilya Repin. He has taught art workshops since 2012.
Related articles
Leda Art Supply Premium Sketchbook
Source: https://www.creativebloq.com/buying-guides/art-supplies
Posted by: godinthemot.blogspot.com
0 Response to "Leda Art Supply Premium Sketchbook"
Post a Comment