What supplies do you need to start drawing?

blog post from 27th of July 2022

Within this section I will describe my personal opinion on what materials are needed for watercolour drawing or painting and show the supplies I own and use, therefore I've tested them all.

This blog post comes as an answer to a question a friend of mine, Jorge, asked me the other day: "What do I have to have in order to start drawing?" he said that it should be something not too pricey in the case he changes his mind or just realises that he does not like drawing after a while.  In that moment I've realised that I do not have a single place where all are described and it is somehow difficult to write a 2 pages e-mail, so what better to group and summarise all this information here.

So, for trying it out you I will give you the three options I use and the approximate cost of today. If you want you could go to my resource page where you have a link to all these and check out the latest info and cost. I will put the link to all here also.

The very first option is to start classically and buy "pen and paper". For actually drawing with watercolor you will need:

1. A set of watercolors. I personally think that at the beginning is better to buy a set of quite a few colors until you get the hang of mixing them. I recommend the WINSOR & NEWTON COTMAN PAINTING PLUS SET : 24 HALF PANS, the pigment is good and they last long enough.

2. A set of watercolor pencils. I found out a bit late about these within my artistic journey, but I consider them very useful for making details or just adding a touch of texture. I recommend the Staedtler Watercolor Pencils set of 24. (Staedtler 14610C M24 Design Journey)

3. Two water recipients and a paper towel or cotton cloth. You will need to rinse your brush or brushes and to moist the watercolors. For that you can reuse something you have at home such as a jam jar or to buy a professional one such as Recipient Click&Go Faber Castell that is portable and you could work with it outside or take it with you when travelling.

4. A mixing pallete. You could use watercolor directly from the pans, but the tone of the watercolor will mos probably be the same - concentrated. So, in order to achieve different tones ( tone in art simply refers to how light or dark a colour is) you will mix a bit of watercolor with water. Also if you want to create different colours here is the place to mix them. I have a pretty simple mixing palette made of plastic. Ideally it will be metal or ceramic as is washes better. This rectangular mixing palette is an option.

5. A pencil sharpener e.g. Staedtler

6. An eraser.

7. One or two 2H pencils ( Faber-Castell B-9000-2H-2 - Blíster). It is important that they are H in order not to leave a strong trace on the paper.

8. An A4 tracing light tablet. It is kind of an optional but I find it really useful. I have the Stone TH A4 tracing tablet.

9. Watercolor paper 300gsm. This part is really important that you have it at the right level of quality. I've tested quite a few and if the paper does not have the right quality, does not absorbs the water correctly then the drawing is just ruined. So, best price/quality I found it to be the Canson Montval Jumbo fine grain 24x32 cm, 100 sheets.

10. Watercolor sketchbook 200gsm. From time to time you just need to pour your inspiration somewhere or just do some tests before painting something. Hahnemuhle A6 landscape 200gsm 30 pages works rather good for a travel sketchbook and fits in any backpack or purse. I use it when I travel.

11. A brush. Yes only one brush. I mainly use the Cotman Brush Series 111 - Size 8 - round tip. With this you can do almost any type of thickness and to start with does just brilliant. If you want to go over the top and spend more money I will recommend others also. I'll do a specific blogpost on that.

All these will take you somewhere roughly to 180 EUR.

This digital option is probably the most versatile and frustration free as it has the "undo" option, acts also as a light tablet as it works with layers, portable, fuss free - you can just sit in your bed and paint something and the pencil simulates together with the software brushes a real-like feeling.

About a year ago I bought the Ipad pro with the Apple pencil and I am still very satisfied with it. Along the way quite a few digital brushes also, but if I were to do it again I'd definitely refrain on buying this much digital assets.

So, for painting digitally with this you would need:

1. an IPad that works with apple pencil 2 - Apple Pencil (2nd generation). It could be:

   • iPad mini (6th generation)

   • iPad Air (4th generation and later)

   • iPad Pro 12.9-inch (3rd generation and later)

   • iPad Pro 11-inch (1st generation and later)

2. An Apple pencil 2 (2nd generation). This is a very sensitive pencil that simulates real touch and feel as if you were to draw on a paper.

3. Optional for watercolor - you could perfectly do without, but these are pretty cool - digital watercolor brushes. I personally like the DAUB ones and the ones from Freya.

With only these few things you can draw in many different styles. I use these quite a lot, but I combine them with scanned watercolor texture or illustrations.

The total cost of option 2 could be somewhere around 850 EUR minimum.

A digital illustrator will probably use a PC or laptop together with a graphical tablet and a graphical design software.

What you will need will be the following:

1. A laptop or PC compatible with the design software. For Affinity Photo (the software I recommend) the technical specifications are here. As per today (but this can become obsolete these are: 2 GHz Intel i3 processor 4GB Ram 2.5 GB available disk space 1024x768 resolution (1280x1024 or higher recommended) Hardware accelerated DirectX/Direct3D graphics card. One or more USB ports, version 2.0 or higher. Noah 4, OtoAccess® and XML compatible). Please check Affinity webpage for latest info on tech specs. 

2. A graphical tablet. There are many out there, but the best price / quality I found is the XP-PEN G640S. It is very sensitive, a plug and play solution.

3. Affinity Photo software. No subscription and very versatile. You pay once and you have it for all your life. When I started searching of course the go-to option for all was Adobe Photoshop, but when you see the cost, for a person that is not generating any income with it, can be a bit pricey. So I went for Affinity and I could't not be happier. I bought in the end all Affinity product range  - Photo, Designer and Publisher, but that could be topic for another blog post.

4. My favourite  - Daub Watercolor Brushes - also available for Affinity. All types of digital brushes that simulate the look and feel of watercolour and more.

5. A scanner - optional - in the case you need to make digital your sketches or to import some hand made textures. Some people do it directly with their mobile phone camera, but I prefer the Epson Scanner.

All these, if we exclude the Laptop/PC, assuming you have one could be 110 EUR or 350 EUR if you decide to buy the scanner. If you do not have a laptop or PC and want the digital option do not even doubt to take the procreate option. Affinity is available also for IPad (around 20 EUR) in the case you need to do more complex tasks such as photo editing.