Hello everyone!

How have you been? I'm sorry I've pretty rather low on the radar lately but no, this parrot is not a dead parrot, I'm still alive!
I've just had a sort of kick-back from all the stuff that has happened to me over the past few months (art-wise and personal stuff as well, and I won't annoy you with that)... and felt like my bed, a good book and a cup of tea were much more attractive than my computer most of the time. Anyway, thank you very, very much for all your kind messages and your support! You guys rock my fuzzy pink socks.


Now, back to the subject.
I'm being asked pretty often what materials I use for my artwork, so I thought I'd make a journal entry about it.
This is mostly a copy-paste of my old entry of my blog that I made about a year ago, though, so you might have read this before if you read my blog, with a few minor changes.


But first, the two best tips I can give you supplies-wise.
(I've probably mentionned those before, but oh well.)

1. Bad supplies... never give good results. It's very, very hard to get something averagely good from poor supplies, especially if you're a beginner. So, if you're serious about your artwork, try to get good quality materials, it's usually worth your investment.

2. On the other hand, supplies don't make the artist. It's useless to buy UBER COOL EXPENSIVE supplies if you have no idea of how to use them, or worse, if you don't dare use them because you're afraid of wasting them (don't laugh, it's happened to me, so there).

Long story made short : be serious about your supplies, but not... too serious.


Now, this is what *I* use.
I'd just like to stress out that I didn't get started with all that stuff: this was accumulated over the years, as I tried and incorporated new media... it's absolutely not necessary to have all that stuff to get started or create nice artwork! And it's not a shopping list either; what works for me may not work for you, and vice versa...


The paper
I work almost exclusively on paper. I generally use hot-pressed Arches watercolour paper (or Sennelier, lately): I buy it either by the sheet, or as blocks. I like sheets better, because I can cut them the size and shape I want (using the paper-cutter you see here).
Mind you, this is NOT the paper you should use with markers: it drinks the ink way too much and kills them in no time. But it's the only one that works for my technique. D:




Drawing - Inking
I draw on our dining table, so since I don't want it to get all dirty, I use a large sheet of cardboard to cover it. It also allows me to stretch and tape my drawing sheet directly on the support, if I want to watercolour it (it avoids wobbling). )
For sketching, I use either a regular pencil or a HB mechanical pencil, and a good old soft eraser.
For inking, I use special drawing pens filled with Indian ink (it's water-resistant and has a good lightfastness). I have several black liners with different widths, and a few with colourful Indian ink: it allows me to slightly change the line colour, which gives some depth and ambiance to a drawing, and makes some objects stand out.




Markers
For basic coloring, I generally use in parallel markers and watercolours, one of top of the other, mixing them, depending on the effect I want to obtain, colour intensity, luminosity (and also, the colours I have available for both, obviously!).
I also often use markers for fine detailing, texturing, shadowing, and patterns.
Markers... I have a whole bunch of them, to be honest (the picture shows only about half of my collection!)



I use different brands: my favourites are the old Trias (top right; the new ones left me unconvinced) and Promarkers, I also have Copics, and a few Touch (not recommended). I also use a regular black marker for large, matte black areas.




Watercolours
As said before, I use a lot of watercolours for basic colours, with markers. I also use them to place "general" shadows, i.e. I splash generous amounts of thinned paints on shadowed areas to get them darker; I also use them for textures and patterns.
I have old Daler-Rowneys that I've had since I was 10, with most of the basic colours, but I don't use them much. I mainly use my own palette (on the right), with my favourites colours that I use all the time (they're Winsor-Newtons).



As for paintbrushes, I have several but I mainly use a medium one and a superfine one (the others are not very useful to me). I also keep an ooooold worn-out brush that gives some interesting texture effects.



Another thing I use sometimes is masking fluid (the blue bottle). It's a kind of liquid plastic that can be spread on some areas to mask them while painting, and you can unmask them afterwards to have the underneath colour showing. I find it hard to use and it will ruin your paintbrushes (better have one just for this use), but it is useful for patterns, etc.
On the picture you can see my watercolours too, but in their tubes.




Pencils
I have an old box that comes from my grand-dad, who no longer uses it. I have a bunch of different colours, but I don't use most of them.
I mainly use pencils for finishings, to bring out the texture of the paper and to darken some shadows. Sometimes I use them for patterns, details, or small splatches of bright colours (backlightings, etc).




Acrylics
That's what I usually use last. I use acrylics either pure, with small strokes and a superfine brush, to add some higlights or reflects, or some tiny details, or very thinned, for transparent elements and light reflections. It's the only opaque medium I use for colouring.
I use Liquitex, but honestly, I can't tell the difference between brands. I use a piece of cardboard as a palette and I change it when it gets too dirty (most of the time, anyway, I take the colour directly from the tube).




And that's it! You know it all now.
Feel free to ask questions if you have any!