In my classes we let the students use what we have on hand and they don't have to pay for it at all. This is an art outreach program intended for poorer families and it is taxpayer funded. We don't have the best gear, but we have gear, and we do our best to get kids interested in things that will make them more creative or hopefully just get them interested in something other than the sorts of things that land people in trouble or in jail later in life.
We get a good response from the parents and even the ones that I think are simply using our services as an hour long free babysitting program.
One issue we do face is that other than a few bits of paper here and there, we do not have the resources to endlessly give away supplies for the kids to take home with them. It is for this reason that we intentionally use cheaper products in the classes because we don't want the families to feel as though this is something that they cannot continue at home.
Thankfully, especially when it comes to the type of watercoloring that we do here at the center, the supplies are extremely inexpensive.
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Most of the lower end to mid-range watercolor sets are actually very similar, and in my years of using all manner of them I haven't noticed much of a difference between the ones that cost $10 for the set, and the ones that cost $30. Mostly I think it is just a marketing budget sort of thing kind of like how Coca-Cola costs 3 times as much as the generic brand, but tastes basically exactly the same.
I do encourage people to stay away from the art supplies that appear at Dollar Tree or the Dollar Store because most of the times these stores end up with very old merchandise that is well beyond its sell-by date and even though all watercolors are simply dried out paint that needs water to be activated, a lot of these really cheap sets at the bargain stores end up being cracked and broken like chalk even when you first open it. Therefore I suggest that people go to a actual art-supply store to get a set. Anything between $10-15 will be more than enough to last you for a very long time. Individual colors like green and black get used more often but thankfully art stores generally sell individual colors for less than $1 each.
One thing that people really should try to not skimp on is paper. Regular A4 computer paper is a terrible medium for watercoloring, so is most notebook paper. It simply doesn't have the absorption capacity necessary.
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Without getting too specific about the type of paper necessary, most art shops will have a wide variety of notebooks that are available for just a few dollars up to $20 or more per notebook. There actually IS a difference in these books but for a beginner, the cheaper ones are more than sufficient. I think that the more expensive ones should be saved for once you have already developed a skill or a system and really want to keep a portfolio of sorts. Therefore, just stick with the cheaper ones for now. Any art store is going to have these in great numbers so just remember that until you start crossing the $10 mark, there really isn't much difference between the various brands. You can tell by touching the paper after a while whether or not it is going to "stick" the way you need it to.
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Next up is the pencil and sharpener and these are basically free. Use whatever kind you want since during the process you are going to be painting over the pencil marks or erasing them anyway. This is something we actually do give away at our center provided the kids don't go losing them every week.
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Last up is the felt tip pen. I highly recommend that this is where you don't try to pinch pennies. A Faber Castel or similar brand is going to run you a couple of bucks but they really are so much better than other pens. Regardless of what you choose for your own sanity do not choose a ball-point pen, they just don't work.
So all in for all the supplies that a person needs in order to have their own beginner home art studio is around $15-20. Watercolors are a great way for any aspiring artist to start out and really, this is a cheap hobby. There are marketers out there that will attempt to sway people into buying more expensive gear but mostly, after decades of doing this, I have not noticed any real difference with these materials.
Just make sure to properly clean your brushes after you use them and they should last a really long time as well. Perhaps I will touch base on that in a later blog entry.
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