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Put together a set of quality art supplies to create the perfect gift for any artist or creative friend.Great gift idea and which art supplies to include when giving an artist gift set

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My daughter has always loved to draw and create masterpieces, but recently she’s outgrown her children’s art stuff and wants to learn to oil paint. So instead of spending money on something mediocre, I talked with a professional artist about art supplies that would be worthwhile and useful for my daughter to progress as an artist.

I put together a kit of the basic art supplies to make an artist gift set for her for Christmas. I also included the portable art easel I made.Build a portable DIY artist easel with space to store paints out of an old wood suitcase

Canvas and Oil paints and Brushes

There are a lot of choices for oil paints out there, and none of them are very cheap. So I decided that if I was going to spend the money, I wanted the paints to be high quality. My artist friend recommended two brands for oil paints, Rembrandt and Grumbacher. I could only find Rembrandt paints individually, but I found this great set of colors from Grumbacher. And not too bad of a price for a nice little set of 10 colors.Great gift idea and which art supplies to include when giving an artist gift set

Boar’s hair brushes are the best type of brushes for oil paints, but synthetic brushes are almost as good. For my beginning artist, these nylon hair brushes will be perfect as she learns to work with oils and hones her artistic skills with them.

With oil paints, you also need canvas. Paper just won’t hold up well enough. Amazon sells a great 2-pack of 8X10 canvas. They are big enough to create a nice painting, but small enough to store well. I ended up buying a 10-pack of canvases.

Drawing Pad and Pencil Sharpener

There are many different drawing pencil options for professional artist, from graphite pencil sets with different hardnesses to mechanical pencils with removable graphite. But, again, I found something almost as good at a fraction of the price. This long point pencil sharpener creates a very fine tip on any pencil. (Side note: the Amazon description says this is an automatic pencil sharpener, it is not.) Since my daughter doesn’t need to experiment with different types of graphite yet, she can just use a #2 pencil with a very sharp tip to sketch her drawings.Great gift idea and which art supplies to include when giving an artist gift set

I also found a drawing pad on Amazon at a really good price, but any sketch pad would work just as well. This drawing pad adds to the look of a professional art set.

What’s in the Artist Gift Set

So, if you just skipped to the bottom to see what supplies are included in the art kit, here they are:

Build a portable DIY artist easel with space to store paints out of an old wood suitcaseI am so excited for my daughter to start learning to oil paint. I hope this artist gift set will help her progress towards becoming a fine artist.