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The right art tools can give you the freedom to bring your artistic vision to life.

Pencil

Erasers

Pens

Paper and hardback sketchbooks

Watercolour paper

Masonite

Canvas

Acrylics

Oils

Watercolour

Ink

Palettes

Brushes

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If you're getting ready to set up your own workspace, there's a selection of art tools you'll need to get started. Whether you want to create a new piece with your best pencils, or simply work on your painting techniques, these tools will set you in good stead.

01. Pencils

Wooden and mechanical, Staedtler, Derwent and Pentel, pencils are an essential art tool for creatives. Find a brand you like working with and make sure you have always have a quality and varied selection close at hand.

02. Erasers

Like pencils, no artists workstation would be complete with an eraser. This malleable putty will remove graphite from most surfaces - an essential art tool if ever we saw one!

03. Pens

If you prefer to work with pens, make sure you have a varied selection of the brand you like working with close by. There are thousands of pen brands to choose from, Faber-Castell, for example, have a lovely selection.

04. Paper and hardback sketchbooks

Whether you're working on a piece for your design portfolio or a new logo design, a sketchbook is an art tool. If you're the hunt for a new one, we've got a great selection sketchbooks for creatives, one of which is sure to meet your requirements.

05. Watercolour paper

"I use Langton satin-smooth hot pressed for most of my work," says artist Dave Kendall. "Although any smooth watercolour paper can be used."

06. Masonite

Many artists prefer to paint on masonite boards. These can easily be purchased and cut to size from timber or hardware merchants.

07. Canvas

The starting point of your next masterpiece, right? Canvas boards can be bought ready or custom made from most art shops. With time and experience you will be able to create your own.

08. Mahl Stick

A Mahl (or painter's) stick is a stick with a soft leather or padded head, used by painters to support the hand that holds the brush. These are widely available from art shops, or you can follow the video above and make your own.

09. Acrylics

Versatile, vibrant and affordable, acrylics can be painted on anything. "Liquitex and Finity from Winsor and Newton are the makes I use the most," Kendall comments.

10. Oils

If you want to get started or prefer painting with oils, there's a wide range available from traditional to fast-drying and water mixable.

11. Watercolour

Watercolor is a versatile and flexible medium that can yield a variety of results. They come in tubes and as dry cake versions.

12. Inks

Inks are a top art tool to have as part of your collection. Great for adding brilliant colour, and useful for glazing if dramatic colour is needed.

13. Easels

There are many types of easel available. Your choice should be based on how much room and money you have to spend.

14. Palettes

Tiles, plates, stay wet palettes for acrylics from Winsor & Newton and Daler-Rowney and traditional wood palettes for oils.

15. Brushes

Choosing the paint brushes for your next project isn't always an easy decision. After all, different effects require different tools so it can be difficult to know which to use. If you're struggling with which paint brush to use, the best thing to do is to try the various shapes. Remember, it takes time to become familiar with the various shapes. Practice makes perfect.

16. Varnishes

To preserve your oil paintings, you'll require a final picture varnish. Gloss and matte are available from various providers for this purpose.
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If you're getting ready to set up your own workspace, there's a selection of art tools you'll need to get started. Whether you want to create a new piece with your best pencils, or simply work on your painting techniques, these tools will set you in good stead.

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Sometimes you just can't figure it out.

It seems no matter how hard you try, how intensely you look at a subject, your drawings look wrong.

You've read how to draw books, maybe gone to a few art classes but the art of drawing still seems to elude you.

And you begin to question yourself - What if it's me? What if I don't have enough talent?

What if I'm never going to improve?

You are not alone.

Understanding drawing can be the key to both your artistic success and a new, razor sharp creative mind - but it can seem an uphill struggle.

But what if there was a simple solution? Pieces to the puzzle that you didn't know existed,

3 secrets that could instantly improve your drawing and painting?

Wouldn't you give it a try?..

1. What if I told you, you talk too much

Talking and drawing don't mix.

The main problems associated with drawing is when you talk you engage your logical, language dominated left side of the brain. This side of your brain is keen on knowing an objects name, labelling it, and organising it.

Often when learning to draw, you need to temporarily hold off judgment and try not to second guess what you think the object should look like, rather than what the object actually looks like.

When you are trying to learn to draw something realistically, you have to engage your right-hand side of the brain, which is keener on images and spatial perception.

It's very hard to do both at the same time.
Why?
Because it causes mind freeze.

Have you ever been in a creative zone of absorption, a state where time travels quickly and you are in what psychology professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi calls 'flow'.
How Does It Feel to Be in Flow?

1. Completely involved in what we are doing - focused, concentrated.

2. A sense of ecstasy - of being outside everyday reality.

3. Great inner clarity - knowing what needs to be done, and how well we are doing.

4. Knowing that the activity is doable - that skills are adequate to the task.

5. A sense of serenity - no worries about oneself, and a feeling of growing beyond the boundaries of the ego.

6. Timelessness - thoroughly focused on the present, our sin to pass by in minutes.

7. Intrinsic motivation - whatever produces flow becomes its own reward.

Flow is the mental state when you are fully immersed in an activity, a feeling of full involvement and energy.

You can get to this stage of involvement whilst drawing... until you get interrupted.

The combination of left and right battling against each other makes trying to draw tricky.

You can learn to talk and draw at the same time but it takes practice.

It all starts by understanding how your mind works, and how you can be subconsciously sabotaging your best efforts.

2. You have a harsh inner critic

You can learn to draw, you just might not believe it and this is often the first stumbling block to attaining a new skill.

Drawing is as much a mental game as an observational game.

Sure, you need a basic level of skill to hold a pencil and make a mark but not as much as you may think. It's about the same level of skill as signing your name or throwing and catching a ball.

However, your subconscious mind is extremely powerful and it can play havoc with your best efforts when learning this new skill.

You see, your subconscious is already telling you this can't be true.

Changing your internal script

Often successes in our lives stem from our own internal beliefs. And these can be crippling both in your progress as an artist or in any other areas of your life.

"Well-meaning, intelligent people often resort to repeating self-defeating behaviour in their personal and professional lives,"

Robert Brooks PH.D and Sam Goldstein, authors of The Power of Resilience.

If you keep on thinking you can't draw, you won't.

As you try and draw something realistically and it starts to go 'wrong' your inner critic starts to rear its head.

Often drawings start off really well and you observe things accurately, it's only when you get to a perceived 'tricky' bit you start to question yourself.

The truth is you have probably started to 'make up' the rest of the drawing and have stopped observing, relying on what you think it looks like.

In comes the inner critic and says:
"That doesn't look like a boat, give up now, it looks like a kid's done it"
So what we have to do is stop labelling objects, and start to look more abstractly.

3. You label the object too much

Isn't this correct?

You should be looking and labelling the object, you should be really concentrating on it, that is what you have to do, right?

Well yes and no.

When I'm drawing a bottle, I don't draw the bottle.

I draw the shapes around the bottle and then the bottle is drawn for me.

Confused?

Let me explain some more.

All edges in a drawing are shared edges, you cannot draw a line without it sharing two edges.

Imagine drawing the bottom of a boat, one straight horizontal line.

That line now shares an edge with the bottom of the boat and the water.

One line, two edges.

That boat you were having trouble with is just a series of lines and shapes.

How I draw

So if I draw the space around a bottle, it shares an edge with space and the bottle so the bottle is drawn by me not drawing it.

In drawing, you are constantly trying to disassociate from labelling real objects so your logical left brain can't try to tell you how to draw what it recognises.

It seems wrong, it seems backwards, but this is why you can't draw.

To see like an artist you have to learn to make a cognitive shift from left brain to right brain.

If you keep on talking to yourself, engaging your inner critic you will be firing up the left brain.

Ever wonder why Jackson Pollack drank a lot of Bourbon, Van Gogh absinthe? Alcohol calms you down, you're not as self-critical.

So although I'm not suggesting you hit the bar before getting out your pencils, just try to be aware of the internal 'voice' that will hinder your progress.

Drawing is a paradox.

To see something as an artist sees it, you have to look at the Abstract elements within it.

Try not to focus solely on the object, try not to label an object but just see it as simple shapes.

Abstract elements once drawn then become real in front of your eyes and the left brain will then fire up to make sense of the shapes and label it.

A brief overview of left brain right brain

A right-brain outlook on life can give you a holistic view, where left brainers are often more detail orientated.

Left-brain thinkers focus on the logical, rational, sequential, and analytical while right-brainers prefer more random, holistic, and free-associated approaches.

Psychologists say that left-brainers focus on words and numbers while right-brain people focus on visual images and patterns.

Right brain thinkers make lateral associations whilst left-brain people make logical deductions from information.

Most people are a mix between the two, do any of these character traits seem familiar?
LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses logic

detail oriented

facts rule

words and language

present and past

math and science

can comprehend

knowing

acknowledges

order/pattern perception

knows object name

reality based

forms strategies

practical

safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS

uses feeling

"big picture" oriented

imagination rules

symbols and images

present and future

philosophy & religion

can "get it" (i.e. meaning)

believes

appreciates

spatial perception

knows object function

fantasy-based

presents possibilities

impetuous

risk taking

Drawing as a learnable skill

This is an example of one of my students 'Before' and 'After' on my beginners drawing course - this is the same mug drawn 4 weeks apart!

Just like every other activity, your skills will be improved as you learn basic principles and get some practice.

The key to learning to draw, just like learning to write, is good foundational instruction and then working until you own it.

No one said it would be easy, nothing worth doing is. Yet just because it is challenging does not mean that, with time and hard work, you will be excellent.

How to learn to draw (without years of study)

I believe anyone can learn how to draw accurately and realistically - without years of grueling study.

I've developed an easy to follow, 7 Part online downloadable video course, to help frustrated artists really understand how drawing works.

You will go on a creative journey to learn how to 'see like an artist'.

You will learn how to confidently pick up a pencil and draw any scene in front of you.

Imagine gaining a new perspective on the world, 'seeing' drawings and compositions around all you!

I want to give you a clear explanation and logical progression so anyone can learn the concepts and techniques of drawing.

With over 3 hours + of video tuition, I want you to have that 'a-ha' moment and really 'get drawing'.

If you are interested in a simple method of learning how to draw you can join my instant access 'Absolute Beginner Drawing Course' byjust clicking this link

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The 3 reasons why you can't draw, (and what to do about it)

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Sometimes you just can't figure it out. It seems no matter how hard you try, how intensely you look at a subject, your drawings look wrong. You've read how to draw books, maybe gone to a few art classes but

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The first step to tapping your hidden artistic talent is a little reality check. Don't aim to be Leonardo da Vinci or compare yourself to another equally famous painter. As much as we would all love to create such masterpieces, comparing yourself to a master of the medium is fruitless.

You can still a lot of fun with art, even if you never sell a piece or gain the "artist" label. It's a great hobby, a way to relax, and something that lets you simply enjoy being creative. If you start out by comparing your work to someone who dedicated decades to it, you'll only find disappointment. More "

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10 Ways to Create Art Without Technical Skill

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The first step to tapping your hidden artistic talent is a little reality check. Don't aim to be Leonardo da Vinci or compare yourself to another equally famous painter. As much as we would all love to create such masterpieces, comparing yourself to a master of the medium is fruitless.

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Something new that is made or produced. The best way is using your imagination.

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How to SKETCH Like a PRO! - Tools, Tips and Tricks!

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Dream Scenery for Beginners with Oil Pastel - Step by Step

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Aladdin GLOW IN DARK - SPRAY PAINT ART - by Skech

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One of the many art style.

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Watercolor Painting Techniques Do's & Don'ts for Beginners

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This piece was done by Salvador Dali . It was done in a 1931.

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This piece was done by LEONARDO DA VINCI.  It was painted sometime between 1503 and 1519.

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This piece was done by Pablo Picasso.  He created this in the late 1903 – early 1904

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This Piece was done by Michelangelo. It was painted sometime between 1508–1512.