Fine art is a wide range of creativity that includes a huge number of various techniques, art schools, and styles. Each of them requires the use of special art tools and materials for creativity. An artist who has chosen one style or another must have a full set of necessary tools for work.
If you are fond of rock painting, you should definitely have a set of
paint pens, acrylic paints, brushes, and a huge storage of stones as a working surface. If your choice is painting, then canvas, easel, oil paints, and a palette are your main weapons.
Without delving into specific ways of transferring images in accordance with each technique or art school, we can highlight the main supplies. These are basic tools that both a beginner and a professional artist must master.
Basic drawing surfaces
First, you need to acquire the material on which you will draw. It is important to remember that the quality of the painting surface affects the choice of drawing tools. The main tools for the artist are:
canvas is made of different materials, so you need to be careful when buying. The main characteristics of a good canvas are elasticity, ease of tension, strength, flat surface, soft grain. The best option would be a model made from natural materials, cotton and linen;
paper provides a much wider scope for imagination, in contrast to canvas, which is used only for painting with oil paints. You can use all kinds of paints on paper, professional pencils, crayons and much more. This material can also vary in quality. Therefore, you need to make sure that the paper has a sufficiently high density and the desired shade (best of all, pure white).
Of course, especially creative artists choose other surfaces for painting, but now we are talking about the main materials and tools. Mastering the technique of fine art on paper and canvas is necessary to begin with. This will open the doors for you to conquer other, more interesting and original drawing surfaces.
What tools are suitable for painting on canvas and other surfaces?
After choosing a surface to paint, the next step is to choose tools and painting techniques. This choice directly depends on the material you choose.
For example, if you prefer a classic canvas, then oil paints should be used to create drawings.
For beginners, it is better to start with paper and watercolors or gouache paints. Watercolors are the most common type of paints not only among beginners; it is often used by recognized professionals.
The choice of painting tools is not limited only to different types of paints. Also, black and colored pencils, markers, pastel crayons, charcoal, sepia and many other tools are used for drawing on paper.
Additional accessories for the artist
To create masterpieces of fine art, you should also arm yourself with some auxiliary tools:
easel - a device with which it is easy to fix paper or canvas for drawing. They are folding, tabletop, portable, tablet, etude. The material of manufacture also differs: wood, plastic, and metal;
brushes - if you paint with paints, you will need brushes of different thickness and hardness to apply them;
palette - it is needed for mixing paints and selecting the exact shade;
pencil and eraser - for creating the first sketches;
solvent - for timely cleaning of brushes. To avoid drying of paints on the fibers of the brush, it is important to clean them in time;
a spatula - a long and flat tool with a rounded tip, intended for mixing paints on a palette.
palette knife - a small knife-like device for applying paint in pasty technique.
capillary pen is a special tool for drawing with ink, using which you can draw a thin line and avoid streaks
mahlstick - a small tool in the form of a wooden stick that is used to hold the artist's working hand over a painting while working on small details.
We've covered the main basic tools that every artist needs to be successful. But this list is much longer and depends on the specific technique and art style that each artist chooses for oneself. And, of course, a good artist will definitely need a rich imagination, a special vision of the world, patience, and a great desire to create. With the last factor, everyone can master painting techniques and become an artist.