
HEY SHAUNA ART THERAPY ART MATERIALS
SUGGESTED MATERIALS LIST
Some general suggestions for materials that I find especially useful for our sessions & workshops together. Please don’t feel like you need to have ALL of the things listed here …or that you need to limit yourself to just these things! Get creative, look around your kitchen, dig around in your junk drawers, find things on the ground on your next walk.
AND, you can often get a lot of these supplies at dollar stores! You absolutely don’t need expensive materials to do this work …inexpensive is GOOD, then they don’t feel so precious and it’s easier to muck around with them!
I’ve also included a smaller list of “basics” (bottom of the page) for getting started.
- Oil pastels (I like the brand Mungyo, good quality & affordable)
- Chalk (soft) pastels (again, love Mungyo)
- Graphite sticks (a variety of hard/soft grades),
- Pencil crayons (I really like the woodless ones, less sharpening, less of the weird breaking that pencil crayons often do. And you can often buy them in singles).
- Watercolour pencils (water-soluble)
- Conté sticks (similar to chalk pastels, but harder/more compressed)
- Pastel pencils (you can often buy them as singles)
- Large paper pad (18″ x 24″ ideally, nothing fancy, white cartridge paper is great).
- Tracing paper (good for layering, and playing with transparency)
- Watercolour paper (I most often use 9″x12″, but any size really).
- Watercolour paints (maybe a small mixed colour palette to start with!)
- Charcoal and/or graphite sticks
- Inks (water-based drawing inks, acrylic, India, vegetable-based)
- Watercolour (handmade natural pigment) paints: Beam Paints and Caitlin Ffrench are two of my favourites.
Things that you may already have on-hand:
- Scissors
- Glue (regular white glue and/or glue stick)
- Masking tape (and/or other type of tape)
- Magazines/books that you can cut up – any sort of paper (recycle bin, junk mail, doom piles…)
- Pencils (regular pencils, graphite sticks).
- Crayons, pencil crayons
- Pencil sharpener (or utility knife)
- Paint brushes (any type really)
- Paint (watercolour, tempera, acrylic).
- Palette for paint … OR you can also just use a piece of cardboard or a white/clear plate (or anything with a smooth surface).
- Palette knife… these can be helpful for scooping and mixing paint, but also for painting with.
- Paper (any size, or colour …you’ll see more saturation of colours with white paper, but try out different colours!)
- Clay! (I get some from Dollarama that’s something like $1.50/pkg and it’s great). You just want air-dry clay, nothing fancy …nothing that needs to be fired in a kiln. There are also some fun plasticines.
- Embroidery thread (assorted colours)
- Embroidery/tapestry needle
- Fabric swatches (for embroidery/patchwork/visible mending)
- Re-usable cardboard weaving loom (DIY instructions here!)
- Yarn (assorted sizes/colours)
ART SUPPLY SHOPS
For purchasing materials locally, or online for curbside/no-contact, delivery and mail order. Some of my favourites!
- Opus Art Supplies (Across BC, and online)
- Urban Source (Vancouver BC)
- Deserres (Canada)
- Thrift/Craft Alternative Art Supply (Victoria BC)
- Beam Paints (Manitoulin Island)
- Caitlin Ffrench (Vancouver)
GETTING STARTED
If I was to suggest a simple starter-pack I think I’d go with this:
- Large paper pad (18″ x 24″ ideally, nothing fancy, white cartridge paper is great).
- Watercolour paper (9″x12″ is a good size).
- Oil and/or chalk pastels (I like the brand Mungyo, good quality & affordable).
- Watercolour paints
- Paint brushes (a variety of sizes, but if I was to choose just one size I’d go with a 6)
- Masking tape
- Glue (regular white glue and/or glue stick)
- Scissors
- Embroidery thread (and embroidery/tapestry needle)
