What Art Materials Do I Need For Sketch Awesome?

I use a set of Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100 pencils but brand isn't important. Any drawing or sketching pencils from an art store or Amazon will do.

A set of 6 is plenty, sometimes it's as cheap to buy a set of 12. 

Make sure you get softer pencils (i.e. ranging from HB to a 6B or higher).

I have a set by Staedtler called Mars Lumograph Black. These are not technically pure carbon pencils but are very similar (especially the 8B pencil in the set).  

I also use and recommend the Pierre Noire by Conté À Paris (get a 2B or 3B and you only need one pencil). Another good choice is a Wolff's Carbon pencil (2B, 4B or 6B), which I also have and use.

If you already have a set of Mars Lumograph Black there's no need to buy anything else unless you want to. Both the Pierre Noir and Wolff's Carbon are inexpensive and worth having though. 

I have a set of 6 water-soluble sketching pencils by Derwent (not Graphitone), which contains 2B, 4B and 8B pencils. 

Faber-Castell does a set and you can buy individual pencils if it's cheaper (just get a 2B and 4B or 6B). 

There'll be other brands too, which will be perfectly acceptable.

This is purely for indulgence purposes and to enjoy the variety of tools at our disposal! You can quite easily follow along with a regular graphite pencil when I use this.

Any brand will do (don't spend lots of money on an expensive one!). I use a Faber Castell Apollo 2327, which was less than £5/$5.

Go for a 0.7mm - 1mm nib size and a B or 2B grade lead. You can buy replacement leads with different grades but 07mm - 1mm is good for sketching purposes. 

Sanguine is like a red-brown charcoal. 

I use a pencil by Derwent. Conté À Paris does them as well. You only need one pencil and they're pretty cheap. Any brand will be fine.

If you have a set of coloured pencils with a sanguine colour in, you could use that instead - although it won't smudge like the sanguine pencil.

I use a set of 6 by Sakura Pigma Micron with assorted nib sizes. 

There are lots of other brands too (especially on Amazon) - just make sure you get black waterproof ink with nibs that range from about 0.3mm to 0.5mm or higher.

To give you an idea, a 0.5mm nib (the 08 pen in Sakura confusingly!) is a good writing size. Smaller than that and it's too fine for writing and used for very detailed work.

It's also worth getting a black marker or brush pen to fill in any larger areas more quickly. Just bear in mind that the ink may bleed through to the other side of the page. 

This is another indulgence just to enjoy the feel of a different tool. Fountain pens feel wonderful on smooth, hot-pressed paper and although you'll probably be working on cold-pressed or mixed-media paper, you'll still get a sense of how smooth they glide across the surface. 

I use a Lamy Safari Pen with a medium nib and matt black ink (you can buy replacement nibs of different sizes and different colour ink cartridges).

Lamy pens have a very good reputation, especially for the price (about £25 GBP / $30 USD). They are widely available all over the world. In the USA, art stores like Blicks will give you more choice than Amazon and often have deals on where you get extra cartridges for free.

There are lots of brands and options on the likes of Amazon or in any online art store. 

I have a Gelly Roll by Sakura and a Posca fine-liner.

We'll only use these in a few projects so there's no need to go mad and buy a huge set (although they do tend to be quite reasonably priced).

Stabilo and Staedtler do smaller sets of 10-12 pens that aren't expensive or Arteza do a nice set of 24.

Coloured fine liners typically won't be waterproof so don't stress trying to find waterproof coloured ink.

Alternatively, you could buy some coloured cartridges for your fountain pen, if you opt for one...

We won't be using more than one colour in any one sketch - but we will be doing multiple sketches on one two-page spread with different colours. 

So you could get a blue, red, green and purple for example. 

Let's keep this simple! All I use is a pocket set of student-quality half pans by Winsor & Newton (their Cotman range).

Here's the set which you should be able to get from Amazon or most online art stores.

It has 14 basic colours, listed below. You don't need the exact same colours - just something similar. And you can use tubes if you prefer.

•  Warm blue: Ultramarine
• Cool blue: Cerulean Blue or Phthalo Blue or Prussian Blue
• Warm red: Cadmium Red
• Cool red: Alizarin Crimson
• Warm yellow: Cadmium Yellow
• Cool yellow: Lemon Yellow
• Warm green: Sap Green
• Cool green: Viridian or Phthalo Green
• Yellow-brown: Yellow Ochre
• Red-brown: Burnt Sienna
• Dark brown: Burnt Umber

You'll also need a black. Lamp black or Mars black will do. I just bought a small 8ml tube for this. Any brand will do and student quality is fine.👍

This one needs a little more explanation as there are two types of gouache with different properties. 

I've created a video along with some recommended brands, which you can see here (if you're short on time just look beneath the video for the recommended brands).

We don't use gouache until week 3...

See the video guide here

For sketching, we can use the same brushes for both watercolour sketches and gouache/acrylic sketches. 

Synthetic brushes are fine. Get what's affordable to you. 

Square Brushes

I got a really cheap set 6 on Amazon (for about £7 GBP / $7 USD) ranging from a size 0 to size 10. The size 10 is about 1/2 inch in diameter and the size 6 is about 1/4 inch, and these are the only two I'll mostly use.

Round Brushes

I use a size 10 (about 1/4 inch in diameter) for the larger brush and a size 6 (about 1/8 inch) for the smaller brush. Again, it might be easier to buy a set of various sizes. 

Oval Wash Brush

I'll use this for some larger two-page spread landscapes. You can use a large round brush (like a size 16) instead. My oval brush is 3/4 inch in diameter, and my size 16 round brush is a bit less than 1/2 inch to give you a comparison.

Palette

If you have a dedicated watercolour palette then great! If you want to buy, a cheap plastic one from any art store or Amazon, that will do... or do what I do and use an old, white dinner plate. 

For gouache, you'll want a larger palette and it makes your life easier using a stay-wet palette. These are super easy to make with a dinner plate or baking tray, some kitchen paper and a piece of parchment/greaseproof paper. 

See the gouache guide here which will tell you how to make a stay-wet palette.

We won't be doing any serious coloured pencil drawings in Sketch Awesome because they are far too time-consuming!

Instead, we'll use coloured pencils for monochrome sketches (mixing up the colour from the greys and blacks of graphite/carbon). We'll also use them over the top of watercolour sketches.

I have a set of 24 by Faber-Castell Polychromos and this is more than enough. These are artist quality so a little pricey.

For the monochrome sketches, a much cheaper set will do but it won't be as easy to lay the colours on top of watercolour (cheaper pencils = less pigment). 

• A kneadable eraser (any brand)
• A regular plastic erase (any brand)
• A good pencil sharpener and if you want to treat yourself, try the Derwent Superpoint Mechanical Sharpener.
• A ruler
• Old cloth and kitchen paper
• Beverage of choice🍷☕️