Get Equipped for Paint and Sip: Your Artist Tools 101

ERIN CORSTIAANS

If you’ve painted and sipped with us before you’ll know that at your session, all the painting equipment is supplied. We take care of the arty bits, so all you need to do is roll on in to your local Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne studio with your painting pals and your favourite thing to sip.

That said, it’s also nice to have your own set of artist tools so you can paint from home, whether it’s to join us for an online painting session or to just paint for fun. And honestly, you don’t need much to be able to paint from home.

Here, we cover the basic painting essentials we use in studio, so you can set up your own painting station. This way, when creativity calls you’ll be ready to go.

Canvas

First up, we’ll need something to paint on. In our online sessions and in studio we paint on 40 x 50cm stretched canvases. While you can paint on almost anything, we like canvases because they’re absorbent, have a lovely texture, and just make you feel like an artist. If you’re painting from home you could also try canvas boards, which have the same texture as stretched canvases but are thinner, easier to store, and are less expensive.

Easel

Painting with an easel allows you to suspend your canvas in an upright position so you don’t get paint on the surface beneath it. This angle is better for our posture than painting on a flat surface, and helps maintain light more evenly. If you don’t have an easel you could always start off by leaning your canvas against a box or stack of books with a towel beneath it. Our favourite easels are the wooden tabletop kind, which fold right up and can easily be tucked away when not in use.

Acrylic Paints

Acrylic paints are the medium of choice in our studios because of their versatility; you can lay them on thick or water them down to create all kinds of different textural effects. Acrylic paint also dries quickly, which makes it easy to edit or change elements on your painting if desired.

In our studios we have a broad spectrum of paints available for guests to use, even though we generally use a smaller selection of colours for each painting. If you’re just starting out, we recommend picking up a student grade non-toxic rainbow set of colours, plus black and a good amount of white, since we use that the most. It’s nice to have a wide range of colours available to use while you’re still getting a handle on mixing different colours and tones.

Palette

You can put your paints on anything really, such as cardboard, a plate, or a tin tray. In studio we provide guests with an aluminium palette, which has a mixing space in the middle and wells around the outside to hold the paints. While plastic palettes are cheaper, we prefer aluminium ones because they’re such a dream to clean. The surface is more slippery than plastic, so the binder in the paint can’t stick to it as easily and the paint slips right off. If plastic palettes could be likened to cotton nighties, aluminium ones are your chic, satiny upgrade. If that still doesn’t float your boat, we’re pretty sure our acrylic Cloud Palettes will.

Paintbrushes

It can be overwhelming to visit your local art supply store and see entire walls filled with brushes of all different shapes and sizes. But really, we only need a few to get through a painting with ease. In our painting sessions we provide a large flat brush, a medium flat brush, and a small round brush. Depending on the painting and the type of brushstrokes we’re looking for, sometimes we swap out a flat brush for a round one. We recommend picking up a nifty little bundle pack.

Washrag

The job of washrag may seem a modest role, but this baby will soon become your painting BFF. Assign an old face washer or scrap of towel this respectable duty and use it for drying your brushes, cleaning your palette, dabbing on texture, or wiping your furrowed artist’s brow at any moment. Not to b-rag, but we created this extra cool Make a Mess Paint Rag for next level spills.

Water Jar

That’s it, folks: the basic essentials you need in your painter’s toolkit. There’s always room to expand from here, but this is a pretty good start. If you want to level up with some quality and novelty pieces, or treat the creative person in your life, it’s all possible with our brand spanking new Capsule Collection 001. Pimp your pooch with the Bork and Chroma Dog Lead, practice painting in your Thick Creative Diary, or better yet, purchase the whole dang collection and stuff it in your PVC & C Tote.

Less is more? More is more? You do you, boo.