Sketchbook Tips: Supplies

Im going to talk about supplies today. The thing is, what I love might not be the best
for you. Everyone has a special feel for their favorite way of working so take what I say
as a suggestion but find your own love!
I wrote a post about this last year when I was finishing up year one. You can read that here.
I paint primarily with gouache. Winsor Newton is my absolute favorite, maybe because I
learned with that brand in my first job as a textile artist in NY.

I keep the colors separated in different boxes, warm and cool, to make it a bit easier to
find the one I'm looking for. I also have Holbein, Schmincke, Linel. I love them too, I usually get
those in colors that WN doesn't have. I mix color of course but Im an art supply
junkie so I need it all!

I don't use watercolors as much but I do mix them in to my work. I have a jumble of different brands
but lately I love the Sakura Koi brand. It says its a student grade in the description but it works really
really well for me. The colors are bright and on the travel set They act a bit more like a gouache.

I'm very hard on my brushes... I never really found a brand I loved till a trip I took to Spain
this spring. I stopped in a beautiful art supply store in Madrid and got these Escoda Barrocco synthetic brushes. I've been using them now for 3 months and they are as good as new, except for the one I left sitting in acrylic paint.... I have sizes 0,1,2,6,8,10,16 and 20. The
larger ones actually keep their point better than the small ones. I haven't tried other versions of
their brushes at this point.

Sketchbooks, This is the most difficult one... I've mentioned this before that in my first year
I used a cheap sketchbook from MUJI (it looks their site is under construction). It helped me
tremendously to have a notebook that was inexpensive. It took away the pressure of having
to be perfect and live up to the quality of the paper. (I've been known to do a final for a job on computer paper. If it works it works) Also because I'm not trying to
get fine washes it didn't matter that the paper wasn't a thick watercolor grade paper.
After 365 paintings though, this year I am mixing it up. I'm still not super picky but I've been
using books that have thicker paper. The current is from Cachet something like the one linked here.
I used a watercolor book, which I actually didn't enjoy as much because I prefer to
paint on smooth paper. I am preferring thicker paper than the one I used year one mainly because
the whole book lays flat and Its easier to paint in as it fills up.

And then all the other supplies. Markers, Gold and White Uniball Gel Pens, Gelly Roll Pens, 

Micron Pens, Crayola, Golden Acrylics. Prismacolor pencils. Anything and everything can make it into a drawing. Sometimes I go to a kids store and buy some fun cheap supplies to play with.

It's all about having fun!!