[Ludovico]

I would take some time to walk around your local art store, they have or should have the supplies according to grade. If you are just buying stuff to practice with go with the student stuff until you find a medium that is something you want to play with.

XD BUTTT... if we are talking Brands:

As far as what I use, I have Higgins inks and they are okay for the cheapness, the black works really well for outlining and if you get the water proof you can easily water color over the lines. The color inks can be a little strong and mixing them is hard as well as diluting them to do washes. I love love love my Winsor Newton water colors, I have a cake because that is what I prefer to travel with, however I carry the van goah water color tubes for when I am at home. At my supply store they are about 3 dollars a tube which is cheap for water colors and student grade.

As for as Acrylics go I have just gotten into those and I can not tell the difference between the craft paints like Folkart and Americana, so if you are on a budget again those are good for play, if you want to up grade I suggest Liquatex since theirs are nice heavy body paints with good pigments. I have not tried the Grambucaher(sp?) brand that is also student grade and hell Dewery that they sell at walmart is also a really good brand with viberant colors. People tend to like Rembrant and Winsor newton paints as well but the cost of the pigments make the paints well out of my budget.

I do not use oil paints, though I have to say I prefer Golden mediums (Matte Mediums, Gesso ) over Liqutex, just based on price and consistancy.

As for paper:
So paper is made by the amount of compression weight that is applied to a stack, the higher this number the thicker the paper. On a paper pack or sheet it usually says something like 75lb 90 100 etc

The thing about paper is it is a personal thing. As long as you pick a paper that is over 100lb you can use it depending on the amount of water you use if that makes sense. If your just doing some black and white line art even 90lb paper will not buckle but the best is perhaps 140lb paper. I say these numbers because brands so not matter to me. When it comes to paper and your work surface its all about texture and weight and what effect you want to work with in the long run. I like smooth print making paper, but a lot of people I know use Archies water color paper.

Again Brands: TO me Canson makes the best sketching paper but their mix media journals are shit to me. Strathmore makes a pretty good student grade water color paper but when you are ready to upgrade Tizano and Arches and Canson make the best 300lb paper. That shit is expensive but man the Tizano makes beautiful textures. Fabrino and Tizano also make Charcoal paper so watch out for the pounds.

And I guess water color paper is what you are suppose to use. But I grew up with a teacher that loved mix media stuff so I would go and do collages with found carboard, melt oil pastels on to shapes I cut out and stuff like that, layering text and stuff. To me a sanded down piece of wood with gesso works just as good as a canvas etc.

Though once you find a way you like to make art stick with it for a while and then play around with other mediums. It can be overwhelming and conflicting to your personal style if you want to try every thing at once. I found painting a long time ago but had people talk me out of it and now I am slowly getting back into it but in the time it took for me to be better at say one aspect, when I could be great at this one. (If that made sense at all xD also sorry if these is overwhelming. )

[Twigg]

*u*
That was soooo helpful, thank you! c:

[Poggio]

oh I forgot to add something xD.
All paints are made by ground pigments versus the binding. High quality paints and colors like Cadmium Red, Cobalt blue have real cadmium and cobalt in them there for by default are expensive. The higher end paints use less diluted materials and there for drives the cost up. It is the same with color pencils. Crayola is affordable because it uses a lot of wax to pigment ratio versus prisma that uses more pure pigments and less binding. The same with the markers, regular markers are just water based inks where as Copics and Prismas uses Alcohal which allow them to be blendable.

[Twigg]

I had no idea about any of that, actually. o3o
Thanks for the info, Pogs~ c: