I still remember my first attempt at paper marbling — a kitchen tray, food coloring, and an embarrassingly muddy swirl that looked nothing like the tutorials I had watched. After three months of testing paper marbling kits at home with my niece, my neighbor’s book club, and a few very patient friends, I can tell … Read more
I still remember my first suminagashi attempt — black ink that sank straight to the bottom of a coffee tray, leaving sad gray smudges on cheap printer paper. After spending a year testing inks, papers, brushes, and tools in our studio, I have a completely different relationship with the craft. Suminagashi (墨流し), which translates to … Read more
Sgraffito changed the way I think about surface decoration. The technique is simple in concept: you layer contrasting colors on a surface, then scratch through the top layer to reveal what is underneath. But getting crisp, clean lines depends entirely on having the right tools in your hands. When I first started doing sgraffito on … Read more
I have spent the better part of three years hauling easels up hiking trails, setting up on windswept coastal cliffs, and chasing fast-moving cloud formations with a brush in hand. Plein air painting, the practice of creating artwork directly from nature rather than from a photograph, demands a very specific kind of paint. The wrong … Read more
Looking for the best supplies for mandala drawing? I spent 3 months testing 12 products with our team of three artists, drawing over 200 mandalas on paper, canvas, and rocks. We measured line precision, smudge resistance, ink flow, and overall ease of use to find what actually works for creating symmetrical, intricate mandala art. Mandala … Read more
I’ve spent the last decade drawing portraits and wildlife with colored pencils, and I’ve lost count of how many sets have crossed my studio table. Some pencils snapped before I finished a single layer. Others laid down color so chalky I had to abandon a piece halfway through. So when our team set out to … Read more
I spent six weeks in my home studio testing seven commercial glazing mediums side by side, and I learned more about luminosity in those weeks than in the past two years of casual painting. Glazing is the technique Old Masters used to make skin glow and shadows breathe with depth, and the right medium makes … Read more
Anime drawing pulls in millions of artists every year, and I have watched beginners and pros alike struggle with the same problem: choosing supplies that actually work for manga-style illustration. After spending three months testing twelve different products and asking our team to run side-by-side comparisons, we put together this guide to the best supplies … Read more
I still remember the first time I tried to draw manga with whatever pens were lying around my house. The lines bled through the paper, the markers streaked, and my “character” looked like a pale, washed-out ghost. After three months of trial and error and an embarrassing number of wasted sketchbooks, our team put together … Read more
I spent three months drawing portraits six nights a week with ten different supply kits to find what actually moves the needle. This guide to the best supplies for portrait drawing in breaks down every tool I reached for again and again, from break-resistant graphite sets to charcoal sticks that grip paper like a dream. … Read more