The 5 Best Art Supplies for Kids

If there’s one question I am asked on a regular basis, it’s what are the best art supplies for kids?

Art supplies can be overwhelming. When you go looking for paint online you’re sure to find 1,239,812,098 brands of paint, all with varying reviews. What do you get for your homeschool? What do you put on the order form for your school?

And you might have a gift card and be thinking now’s your chance to get some art supplies! But…what?s

Unless you have time to sit down and page through countless items on Amazon, Blick, or at your local art store (and I know I certainly don’t), a little direction would be helpful. I’m here to help.

And although this list isn’t exhaustive by any means, here are the 5 best art supplies for kids that will allow for almost unlimited creativity with our projects, without breaking the budget. They’re also supplies that I use with my own kids, with my students, and to create the lessons for our membership, and I use them again and again.

All links are Amazon affiliate links.

1. Sulphite Paper

What on earth is sulphite paper? It’s your answer to when you don’t want to have 3,413,020 types of paper (I’m fond of numbers today) in your art room or home.

This paper is thicker than traditional drawing paper, and thinner than cardstock. What you get is an all around great mixed-media paper for kids. It handles watercolor and tempera with ease, so long as you look for 80# or above, pastels, crayons, markers, and anything in between with very little leak through. (90# is my favorite but don’t go lower than 80#!)

Once you start using sulphite paper, it’s hard to go back. The quality of it feels so much better to create on, and you don’t have to worry about holes in the paper (such as when you use construction paper and it’s constantly tearing.)

Want to save money? Grab the 12×18 bulk pack and cut it in half.

If you’re looking for colored sulphite, make sure to look for Pacon Tru-Ray. Often the word sulphite is in tiny print on the front of the package and it’s listed as “heavyweight construction paper”.

Sax Sulphite Drawing Paper, 80#, 9×12

2. Big Kids Choice Paintbrushes

It can be hard to find paintbrushes that aren’t shedding all over the place. Royal Langnickel’s Big Kids Choice brushes handle little hands, and are a great all purpose brush for painting with tempera, watercolor, or acrylic.

Their green handled set of round brushes is especially helpful and comes with a basic round 8, all the way down to a detail brush for outlining. These brushes can also be found in classroom packs as well.

Royal Langnickel Big Kids Choice, Round Set of 6

3. Pan Watercolors by Ooly

Ooly’s product line consistently remains one of my favorites. Vibrant and fun, their watercolors bring a boost of color to the scene.

Pick up the regular pods for more color variation than Prang or Crayola Educational (my other two favorites). Or grab their neon set which adds some zing. Their neon set also glows under a blacklight for additional fun, as well as looks beautiful on black paper.

Ooly Lil Pods

Ooly Chroma Blends Neon

4. Liquid Tempera

There are a lot of brands of tempera paint, but consistently ranking as one of my favorites for coverage, washability, and cost is Crayola’s Artista II and Premier lines.

These are a step up from the washable tempera, and the additional cost is worth it. When kids are painting something blue, they want it to be blue, not a sheer layer of blue that requires another three layers. That coverage is important.

Crayola’s paint also blends with other colors effortlessly allowing you to mix to your heart’s content (hello popping pastels of spring!)

If you want to upgrade a bit, Sax Versatemp is hands down my favorite. You can get the colors in neons too which add a pop of fun!

Crayola Artista II Tempera

Crayola Premier Tempera

Sax Versatemp

5. Mungyo Pastels

Okay, I cheated. This is actually two supplies – both chalk and oil pastels. But the brand is the same. Mungyo’s chalk pastels have been consistently the brightest that I’ve found. They also don’t require a lot of pressure to go onto the paper like some of the harder pastels. With 64 colors to choose from, blending colors has never been easier, or more beautiful.

Their oil pastel line is just as amazing. Sometimes Pentel doesn’t blend as easily as I’d like and requires a lot of rubbing, but the Mungyo brand blends like butter.

Mungyo Chalk Pastels, 64 count

Mungyo Soft Oil Pastels

What about you? What would you add to the best art supplies for kids?

Want to try some of these supplies out? Head here to download one of our free mini-bundles.