Top 10 Art Supplies for Young Artists

This post may contain affiliate links.

Fueling the artist in a child is a powerful thing to do. The beauty and power that unfolds in their lives is really incredible to watch. Here are our top 10 art supplies for young artists that they will love.

Over the years we’ve tried many different types of art supplies and have really settled on a list of a few things that are the things we keep coming back to again and again. We love them!

And when I talk about “young artists” I’m not talking about toddlers or preschool/kindergarten age. I’m talking about young artists who are gaining some skill and want to try their hand at really making some nice things. Maybe older single-digit kids and tweens, on up into teens.

Our Top 10 List of Art Supplies for Young Artists:

Strathmore Visual Journal

This Visual Journal is a spiral bound 140 lb. watercolor notebook with the pages being 5 1/2 x 8″. Just right for dabbling into creating fun watercolor pictures but not too large to be overwhelming.

One school year I had a group of girls aged 10-11 at my home every other week for what we called Curiosity Club and after I taught them some basic watercolor skills we encouraged them to paint some things at home and bring their journals back to our next class and show us what they did. So fun!  My daughter loves these so much that she has filled up several of them with amazing things.

Dotted Notebook Journal

These dotted notebooks are nice regular paper (not watercolor) and they have dots in a grid all over each page. The dots are not dark, just light enough to see and help artists draw straight lines, and also to help them with perspective and proportion. My daughter also has filled a few of these. 🙂

Pencils

Yup. Just regular old pencils. We tried using some fancy artist kind but just found we really liked regular pencils. However, not just any old kind of regular pencils. There are pencils, then there are pencils. In my opinion, Ticonderoga pencils are the best.

Micron Pens

These Micron pens are cool to use and this set comes with a variety of sizes. They work super well for outlining drawings, etc.

Ink Joy Gel Pens

Yes, my daughter loves these, but I have to say, I’m hooked on these Ink Joy gel pens, too! I had other favorite pens that I loved to write with, but when I tried these pens, well, I haven’t looked back. They write nicely and they are in such pretty colors. We particularly love the 0.7 size (pictured).

Prismacolor Colored Pencils

We have tried so many cheaper brands of colored pencils and honestly, none that we have tried even come close to how nice these are. They lay color on the paper soooooo smoothly. So richly. So nicely. The colors are amazing. You just can’t go wrong with Prismacolor. The image below is linked to a set of 23, but they also come in other sized sets.

Mechanical Erasers

Sometimes you just need to erase a teeny-tiny area and regular erasers are just too big. Finding these mechanical erasers was magical. The first mechanical eraser pictured is quite narrow, and the second one is a bit bigger.

Blending Stump

A what? Trust me, these little gizmos come in real handy. Just when you’re wanting your drawing to have some blended or shaded areas, and a fingertip or a q-tip just won’t do. Well, blending stumps are just what you need.

Pelikan Watercolor set

We’ve tried so many different brands of inexpensive watercolors, and when a friend suggested I try these Pelikan watercolors I was hesitant because they weren’t quite as cheap. But I did try them and now we really can’t/won’t go back to any other kind. Yes, there are fancier brands out there, but for our needs, these are really fantastic.

The colors are simply yummy! Oh, my. So rich and so vibrant. Not washed out at all. Really lovely.

You can get a set of 12:

Or a set of 24. Both are fine, but I have to say, my daughter and I reach for the 24 set way more often.

Pentel Aquash Water Brushes

Long ago when I first heard of these water brushes I thought they were a luxury and way unnecessary. But then… we tried them. Wow. Now they are all we use. Just sayin.

Inspiring Art Books

My daughter told me I just HAD to include these books to give inspiration and ideas to other young artists. She devours these!

And another idea just for fun: Skinny Washi Tape

Just can’t skip recommending some good ol’ washi tape. We love all sizes of washi tape but particularly fell in love with this skinny kind. So cute!

Ok, so either I can’t count, (that was 12 suggestions, 14 if you count each book separately) or I just got carried away telling you about the “top 10” art supplies we love. I think it was definitely the latter. 🙂

If you or your young artist have some art supplies that you/they love we’d love to hear about them!

Did you enjoy this post? Pin it to your favorite Pinterest board to find again later!