My Art Haul And The Difference Quality Art Supplies Makes

This is a little late for a Christmas haul, but it’s still January and better late than never to share my favorites art supplies from Christmas. Furthermore, I wanted to show you how it has made a world of difference getting quality art supplies in my final illustrations and art. I’ve been practicing calligraphy since November of 2016 and since July of 2017, I’ve been developing my fashion illustration skills.

For years, I’ve loved the fashion sketches that I’ve run across on Pinterest and then I ran into Holly Nichols’ work. She is among my favorites and in another post I’ll go more into details of my favorite fashion illustrators and calligraphers.

Fashion Illustration

I decided to try my hand at fashion illustration. It seemed easy enough. Boy, was I wrong! Here are two of my first sketches:

They aren’t horrible. However, the illustrations lack movement and are very stiff. One of my problems when I started fashion sketching was  my supplies. I have watercolors, which many fashion artists use, but that didn’t seem to work well with the style I wanted to develop. After researching, I started investing in copic markers over the following several months. The first set I got was the skin tone set. It made a world of difference! You can see my progression on Instagram (@sharretteillustrations).

Copic Markers

Which brings me to my Christmas haul. I had a growing number of Copic markers, but they were for basic things like skin and hair. For Christmas, I got the Copic Ciao 24 color set and 2 blending trios.

 

Here are the links if you are interested in getting some too:

 Copic Ciao Markers 24pc Basic Set
Copic Sketch Blending Trio Markers 3/Pkg-Set 1
Copic Marker Sketch Blending Trio Markers, SBT 4, 3-Pack

As a result, I can finally add some color to my fashion illustrations without wondering how I’m going to blend my watercolors to be the exact color I need. It’s been great and I feel like it has really elevated my abilities.

Pentel Brush Pen

In addition to these Copic markers, I also got some refills for my Pentel brush pen.

This has been my absolute favorite calligraphy brush pen. Most of all, it creates such a rich mark and the brush tip is easy to handle. Best of all, It is cost effective!

In conclusion, what are some of your favorite art supplies you got for Christmas?

If you are needing inspiration for some supplies, I definitely recommend the copic ciao set, Or really anything copic, and the pentel brush pen! This post contains affiliate links for the aforementioned products.