Elizabeth Domogala - Favorite Art Supplies

I primarily use three watercolor brands and several pastel brands. These are the top in my choice. Try them out and see how you like them. Play is the best part of creating anything we do in life, but with any art supplies, it depends on what you are looking for. I need a supplies that are vibrant, clean, transparent (for watercolors), knows how to play nice with others. As far as paper goes, it's a long list. For watercolor illustrations and botanicals I use hot press as it's smoother, but for everything else I use cold press because I love the textures and the play of the paints. I've listed the paper I like to use for watercolor below. For Pastel, I use an assortment but will post my favs below. This page contains some affiliate links, which means if you purchase an item, I’ll receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

Watercolors

Packing up some new supplies for a road trip. . .

This is my favorite watercolor paper because I am a scrubber, lifter and sculptor when it comes to painting with watercolors. Fabriano holds up to the task.

**Meeden makes a great 100% cotton acid free watercolor paper that's more economical than others.

Daniel Smith Watercolors - these watercolors are my go to for daily painting. They are rich, well balanced mingle nicely and are gorgeous. Potter's Pink is a must!

Sennelier Watercolor Set - Pure pigment! Classic rich watercolors - a little goes a long way. They blend and pick-up beautifully.

Used by Singer and Sargeant, Windsor & Newton have stood the test of time and I love the way they dance and mingle.

This is the "Koi" by Sakura travel watercolor set. I just love this little kit. The watercolors are good quality. I use this set along the coast, or by the lakes and woodlands. I love to paint the jetty's and beach grasses and this set in particular has paynes gray, burnt umber for the rocks and grasses. It also has some deeper colors to achieve tonal impact from the lakes and woodlands. These paintings are in my sketchbooks, but, if there is one I like, I will recreate it in the studio as a landscape for art prints, cards, notes etc. using my other watercolors.

This is my John Pike Palette that I've had for years. You may still be able to buy direct from ebay, however, I'm not sure how many are left. Meeden makes nice palettes and one that is similar. I have a lot of palettes for different uses and some are round porcelain that I stack - also from Meeden. I stack them because for my botanicals, I tend to use the same colors and I have the palettes separated by color scheme.

**Meeden has made a lovely palette and it's porcelain and comes with a lid which can also be used as a palette.

Pastels

My favorite medium of all time is soft pastel. Sennelier is my favorite brand for extra soft pastels. I started with this set of half sticks to see which colors i would use up first, over time I have replaced those with full sticks.

Now owned by Prismacolor, Nupastel has been a favorite "hard" pastel of mine for years. Great for blocking in shapes, tones and creating underpaintings. mixes well with water or alcohol to create a wash base.

Terry Ludwig Pastels are excellent. This set is a great starter as they truly are the most loved and used.

This was my first set of Terry's Pastels. I know it says nightscape, but they are perfect for florals, beach and landscapes. I use Sennelier on top of these when I am finishing a painting.

Jack Richeson - This set of hand rolled pastels are velvety and soft and come in great colors for florals.

For pastel pencils I really enjoy working with Caran D'Ache. Great colors, and work great for finer details.

Pastelmat and Uart sanded pastel paper are my go to's. This palette no.7 are my most favorite colors to work with.

Uart sanded paper comes in different grits. I prefer working on 400 grit. They are sizes up to 27"x40". A tip I learned along the way: Uart paper tends to curl so to avoid this, when I am done with a painting, I lightly mist the back of the paper with a very fine mist sprayer, Then place it on a piece of glassine with another piece of glassine on top and cover it with a large book. That will flatten it fairly quickly - a few hours and then it's ready to frame.