Recommended Supplies for Drawing and Painting Classes

If you are taking drawing and painting classes at Brooke Lanier Fine Art, you will need to provide your own materials. We do not keep large quantities of art supplies on hand, but for people who are only taking one lesson, there is a possibility you may be able to purchase some from the studio for the day. Contact Brooke if you have questions about this option.

Skip to Watercolor Painting Supplies.

Skip to Oil Painting Supplies.

Drawing Supplies:

• Pad of newsprint paper, at least 18" x 24" inches

• Pad of charcoal drawing paper, at least 18" x 24"

• Kneaded rubber eraser

• soft vine charcoal

• compressed charcoal

  
  

We currently have a limited quantity of 18" x 24" charcoal drawing paper available to purchase by the sheet or pad.

Watercolor Painting Supplies:

You will need watercolor paint in tubes, not pans.  It is easier to mix them this way and yields richer color. I recommend Van Gogh watercolors since they are inexpensive but good quality.

Required paint colors:

• Azo yellow medium

• Arylide yellow aka hansa yellow

• Phthalo Blue

• Ultramarine Blue

• Cobalt Blue

• Madder Lake Deep

• Permanent Red Light or Cadmium Red.

Palette:

You absolutely need a palette, but which one you get is flexible.  When picking a palette, keep these things in mind:

1.     You need something that has wells that will keep the paint in little puddles.  Otherwise, it will dry out too quickly and you’ll have to keep re-wetting it.  That means the colors get diluted and you have to use more layers to get the saturation you want.  This will make you gradually lose your mind as you take several times longer than necessary to make paintings that aren’t as good.

2.     You need a palette with a large, flat area on which to mix your colors.  You can’t get evenly mixed paints in a circular well. Your smaller palette knife is 2” long, so if your mixing surface is too little for your mixing tools, you’re going to have a bad time. 

3.     I recommend a watercolor mixing palette with a lid because it will allow you to transport your paints without waste and will potentially keep your paints wet between sessions.

As long as you have something with wells and something with a flat mixing area, you’re good.  Sometimes, I mix on a flat, white plastic tray and then transfer the mixed colors to wells. Keep in mind that you’re going to end up working with a bunch of colors at the same time, so get something that has plenty of wells and space. If you get a little, cheap palette, get more than one. 

Paper:  

I recommend blocks of watercolor paper. Blocks are different than pads because all 4 sides of the paper are glued together, which keeps them from curling when wet. 

Different types of paper have different absorbency and textures. If you only want to get one of these at a time, that is fine. 

I recommend Strathmore 400 Series Watercolor Block - 11'' x 15'', 15 Sheets or

Arches Watercolor Block - 7" x 10", Cold Press, 20 Sheets.

You might also like Blick hot press watercolor paper or Fluid brand paper, which is very smooth and good for linear details. It’s not as easy to blend on as Arches because it is more absorbent.

Watercolor Brushes:

There are so many kind of brushes! If you want to try some of mine, you are welcome to do so, but if you want to continue practicing at home, you need to buy your own. Here is my short list of recommendations.

Princeton Short Handle 3750 Select Size 6 Flat Shader

Princeton Short Handle 3750 Select Size 3/4In Flat Wash

Princeton Velvetouch Long Round Sizes 2 and 6

Sumi-e Brush

Plastic palette knives with a goose neck

Creative Mark Harmony Squirrel Quill 4 is recommended, but it is unavailable at Blick. They may have a different brand. I recommend the squirrel quill brushes because you can create a wash, but they also have a point that is useful for making lines. If I had to pick a single brush to take with me on a trip, this would be it. Do not buy a synthetic quill brush.  It is cheaper, but doesn’t do the job.

If you cannot find this brush, which should be soft and made of natural hair rather than nylon, buy a wash mop.  A wash mop is a big, fat, fluffy brush kind of like you'd use to apply blusher. Pull on the bristles to make sure it doesn't shed.  If you get a cheap one, you'll spend more time picking hairs out of your paintings, which is annoying. 

Oil Painting Supplies:

You will need a surface on which to paint. Depending on your project, this can be a primed panel, stretched canvas, or canvas paper. Brooke can teach you how to stretch and prime a canvas or sand and prime a panel if you want that to be part of your lesson, or you can buy a pre-prepared surface.

Required paint colors:

• Cadmium yellow medium

• Arylide yellow aka hansa yellow

• Phthalo Blue

• Ultramarine Blue

• Cobalt Blue

• Madder Lake Deep

• Cadmium Red medium

• Titanium white

• Optional: iron oxide pigments

• You can get black if you really want to, but I typically mix a tonal equivalent from a combination of other colors.

  
  

  Gamblin, Windsor-Newton, Utrecht, and Van Gogh have decent quality mid-grade paints. Van Gogh paints have a higher oil content, so they dry much more slowly.

  
  

If you want to paint at home you will need

• 8 oz bottle of Gamsol. (Turpenoid is ok, but smellier.)

• 8 oz bottle of linseed oil

• cotton rags

• a jar in which to seal the solvents you use to clean your brushes

• "The Master's" Brush Soap

If you're only painting in my studio, I can provide solvents, linseed oil, and brush cleaning supplies.

Oil Painting Brushes:

Different brushes are good for different tasks. Boar bristle brushes are good for moving thick paint and maintaining a lot of texture. Softer hair is better for blending, and synthetic brushes have more snap. Different shapes are better suited for specific tasks. You can borrow some of mine for the first class if you don't have any of your own, or I can give you a list based on what you would like to paint.

Here are a handful of my most frequently used brushes and palette knives for small and mid-sized work. A lot of them are between sizes 1 and 6. Note that my paintings involve fine details and blending, so for pieces that have rougher brushwork with thicker paint, I use bigger brushes than this and favor chunking boar bristle brushes and non-brush tools. (Burly brushes not pictured because a lot of them are kinda scrubbed to nubbins or fraying and sad, which would not help you identify them in stores).

I use a lot of Princeton brushes. The Velvetouch line is great for fine linework and fluid strokes, and they have softer bristles with more flex. They work best with thinner paint and I use this series for watercolors as well, though you cannot use the same individual brush for oil-based and water-based media.

The Princeton Aspen line holds its points well, has good flex and snap, and can be used for moving thicker paint or doing soft blending. I don't like buying large round boar bristle brushes because they don't often hold their points well, but this is personal preference.

It's good to have some bigger, stiff brushes for moving paint around in large areas. I don't recommend buying the Loew-Cornell brushes in the photo, but I inherited them, and I like the size and roughness of the bristles for creating texture. I also use squeegees, palette knives, and rags for these purposes.

Palette Knives:

I prefer to mix paint with square-tipped palette knives because they provide most even contact with the paint, but if you're using them to apply the paint to your painting, it is nice to have a variety of shapes and sizes. Pick the appropriate sized tool for the job. If you're trying to mix a giant pile of paint with a tiny little diamond-tip palette knife, you're going to be annoyed, take forever, and do a less thorough job, but it is a good tool for applying detailed impasto marks to your art.