Watercolor Painting
Black Velvet Round Watercolor Brush, Size 10, Short Handle-Silver Brush Black Velvet watercolor brushes are simply my go-to watercolor brushes.
Renesans by Polska Professional Watercolor Paints are the best value in high quality watercolor paints that I am aware of. The are distributed in North America by A Little Creative Me. Check out The Willa Set!
Everyone wants to know about the paper that I use in my handmade journal during the summer of 2022. You can find the paper here. Just be advised that it isn’t true watercolor paper and doesn’t yield the best results for traditional watercolor painting. It has so many other wonderful features that I will continue to use it-the feel of the paper is soft, squishy and oh-so-yummy and it allows for me to do the kind of art journaling that I enjoy.
Sax Brand Sulphite Drawing Paper, text weight, 9 x 12”, pack of 500-this is great cheap paper for playing around with loose watercolor and it also makes nice text weight paper for handmade books!
Canson XL Watercolor Paper, 9 x 12” or any size pad, 140lb./300gsm-this is a great all around paper for mixed media art and loose watercolor painting.
Arches 100% Cotton Watercolor Paper is my favorite of the fine watercolor papers and it is wonderful to work with when the loose, uncontrollable look is NOT what you are going for.
Kuretake Gansai Tambi Watercolor 36 Colors Set-I never met a set of watercolor paints I didn’t like, but if you don’t own any watercolor paint, this is a wonderful economical set of high quality paints to start out with.
I have more watercolor palettes than I can count, but I return to these porcelain palettes time and again.
Mixed Media Art
I am completely obsessed with these micro serrated Tonic scissors by Tim Holtz. You’re gonna want both sizes.
My favorite new papers for making handmade collage fodder are:
Wet strength tissue paper The good stuff ain’t cheap but it’s totally worth it for mixed media collage art.
You’ll need lots of these Uhu Glue Sticks.
One of the most important adhesives for mixed media art is a PVA glue in an applicator bottle. You will never regret owning this. You’re gonna need a good pair of crafting tweezers too.
For all of my favorite pens for mixed media art journaling and hand lettering, see this blog post.
Book Making
You are most definitely going to need a set like this to bind your books!
I could not live without a paper cutter.
These are my favorite clips to hold the signatures together while I punch holes and sew a book.