Art Therapist Art Supplies and Art Desk
Hello friends, today I'll share with my personal art supply collection and my desk where I make art and do my self art therapy exercises. I also practice minimalism so I share how I keep the amount of art supplies to a minimum and what I do with my artworks.
I also have a video tour of my supplies and desk space, so feel free to go here to watch it.
List of my Art Supplies
I work as an art therapist and have a bag separate to all my personal art supplies. Today, I'll share my personal supplies that I keep to make art on my own for my well being and self-care.
So I put almost all of my supplies on a cart. And it is tucked away in my closet usually to have more space in my bedroom. I like to put things in reusable or recycled containers.
I put drawing and painting materials on the top and middle shelf so they are easy to reach. I use them pretty often.
My favorite go-to materials are: oil pastels, liquid watercolor, and watercolor set (which I squeezed into a palette).
What is your favorite material? Let me know in the comments below.
My paint supplies include alcohol inks, a little bit of acrylic paint (which I don’t like to use much), gouache, watercolor, and natural pigments.
I keep natural paint pigments to make homemade gouache & watercolor paint. I love these because I don’t have to have chemicals in my paint, they have beautiful colors, & I enjoy the process of making paint from scratch.
On the bottom shelf, I have:
different glues (mod podge, glue gun, elmer's, etc)
knickknacks for collage
needlework supplies
a collection of shells
supplies for candle-making, which I am excited to start.
So there is this little pouch I hang on the side of my card and here I put everything that is fiber art related - I have needles, threads for embroidery, and crochet hooks. I keep the collect of hooks in a pouch I crocheted.
Outside of my art cart, I also have some clay to do ceramics, and a collection of yarn for crocheting and weaving.
Another art medium I like is photography. I have a vintage Twin Lens Reflex camera from Yashica that takes medium format film. I like to take this when I’m traveling and it takes gorgeous photos!
Now, on to my sketchbook/journals! I have 3 sketcbooks and one is for writing or doodling. I have another one for watercolor or gouache painting. And one is my go-to, favorite sketchbook, which is for multimedia purposes. I like to draw, paint, and do collage in this.
And lastly, I have one additional journal and it is a mini book I made a while ago. I just started to add some mandala drawings to it.
I have one place where I keep most of my papers, scraps, images, and magazines for collage-making. So basically all the 2-d collage materials are here.
My Art Desk
If you are curious about the desk and space I make art, definitely watch the video. So I don't have a separate art studio and currently I just use a small corner in my room to make art.
The desk I use is an altar, an art desk, and a book shelf as well. I love this because it is all in one for me, it keeps my furniture to a minimum, and I like to sit on the floor.
What I do with Supplies & Artworks
Because I'm a minimalist, I keep the art supplies to an amount that makes me the most happy and at peace. I used to have a lot more things, but I let go a lot of them (especially yarn).
It was difficult to downsize my collection but, looking back, I realized that I didn't use most of the materials I had anyway. And now, I only have what I use often, in small quantities (only buying 1 or 2) and buy only when I use it up & run out.
What helps me keep this a happy amount of things is only buying when I use up something. This means not having multiples of the same sketchbooks, multiples of pastels, or yarn.
You might ask, what do I do with the artwork that I make?
When I make art, I usually recycle or throw away afterwards. For drawing and painting especially, I try to fill up by whole sketchbook or journal and then recycle them.
I also sometimes reuse artworks, like cut them up or use them as part of a collage in a new work.
To me, the process & experience of making art is important and art is a way of developing myself or gaining insight from it, so I don’t focus much on keeping an artwork to look at it or hang it unless it was made for that purpose. I like to disassemble, recycle, reuse, or simply let go of them. If I really wanted to keep, I take a photo.
If you want a tour of my whole room and how I intentionally designed it, let me know in the comments and I can make a video/blog on it in the future.
If you are curious about the exact supplies I use, here is a list of the items and where to get them:
• Paint pigments by Earth Pigments
• Oil pastels by Loew-Cornell (60 pack)
• Gouache paint by Reeves (12 set)
• Watercolor paint (tube) by ShinHan (24 set)
• Liquid watercolor by Royal Talens Ecoline
• Multimedia sketchbook by Bee Paper Company
• Watercolor journal by Strathmore (400 series)
This is also a desk that was in my room (seen in video):
• Two-tiered computer desk by Songmics
Thank you for reading & talk to you next time!
* This post may contain affiliate links. If you buy something through one of those links, you won't pay anything more, but I'll receive a small commission, which helps me keep making videos & writing blogs for free. Thanks!