After a quick swatch & demo, I explore new ways to use our affordable treasures together. I take them to the library with a sketchbook I made from the cheap paper, then draw what’s around me.

The next day, I return to the park to use our color of the month and its complementary color, which I usually don’t like. The result shocked me!

Related Videos

Cheap Supplies I love

• Pentel oil pastels

• Paint Pad

• Water Brushes

• Paint Sticks

• Prismacolor Ebony Pencil

Cheap Supplies I don’t love

• Crayola Crayons & Colored Pencils

• Most any cheap marker

• Bic anything

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I’d love to know your favorite bargain bin supplies in the comments!

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I also share materials I’m bringing on our bookbinding adventure with , so you can be prepared and know what to expect. Here’s a link to our session replay.

Materials & Mentions

• Peg & Awl tutorial

• Katie Moody Owls session

• Strathmore Bristol

• Strathmoore creamy paper

• Bookbinding kit

Here’s a link to the Events Page, so you can sign up and see what’s coming next!

Margaux’s lovely supplies list for the workshop:

Tell me about your adventures, challenges, and thoughts on bookbinding!

Here’s a summary of the experience:

• Smooth pages - Neocolors glide across like butter.

• Lays flat - It’s because the paper is crappy.

• Cheaper price - Low price = low pressure to make perfect art.

Possible dealbreaker:

As I mentioned above, the paper is crappy. I stand firm in my belief that there are no bad sketchbooks. If you’re like me and use a lot of wet materials, this ain’t the sketchbook for you. I kept trying to push this sketchbook to take wet materials, and its thin paper didn’t like that one bit.

You can’t make a sketchbook do something just because you want it to. I won’t buy this one again. Instead, I’ll keep making my own from printed paper and cereal boxes and spend more on thicker paper!

Watch the video for the full experience, swatch page, and a tour of my work in this cheap sketchbook.

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Set a timer when you: 

• Choose a color palette

• Sketch from a reference image

• Clean your house

• Look at your phone

• Check emails

Does it feel restrictive and stressful? 

No! The timer makes your day feel more like a carnival. When it buzzes, you know it’s time to get off a ride and move on to the next! 

How can a timer help you?

Avoid overthinking - If you find yourself agonizing over getting that perfect line, set a 5-minute timer and it becomes a race between your brain and your hand. Hopefully your hand wins.

Limit procrastination - Errands, chores, and obligations can call out to us when we have work to do. Put 10 minutes on the clock, do what you can, then practice drawing!

Practice accountability - Social media is a necessity for promotion, but spending too much time there can sap creativity. Manually setting a timer to do marketing is a must! 

A timer is my most important tool because it helps me treat my creative practice like a career. When I worked for others, I had no problem showing up at 9 am every day. The timer helps us treat ourselves with the same kindness and courtesy others expect from us.

If I were getting married, I’d ask my timer to be the maid of honor at my wedding. It may not be able to throw me a wild bachelorette party, but it’ll ensure I’m walking down the aisle on time.

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You don’t have to take my word that these markers are delightful. Here’s what some artists I admire say they love about acrylic markers.

Read on for some tips and thoughts on acrylic markers from artists I admire! 

Easy Access

“I really love them - for me, they help provide one less barrier of entry into my sketchbook if I’m struggling with motivation,” said Katie Moody. “It feels so much easier to grab a marker and get creating than grabbing a tube of acrylic and having to get set up with a palette. I just love how quick they are to use and their speed at laying down colour.” Check out Katie’s video comparing pens in her collection.

Play well with others

Janet Olsen appreciates how acrylic markers perform with other materials in her practice. “I especially like using them with Neocolor II’s and Inktense pencils (either wet or dry) on top, and I love how regular graphite pencil looks with the markers,” she said. “Permanent ink works well, and I really like using dip pens and ink over them.”

Location Drawing

Emma Carlisle said about her favorite acrylic markers, “If I don’t have them when I’m drawing out on location, I genuinely feel a bit sad.” 

That hits close to home. That’s probably why I overpack every time!

I swatched some different brands in the video for paid subscribers so you can compare how each behaves. You can find more materials videos on the contents page.

If you have gently used acrylic markers that you’re not using, feel free to add them to the art supply swap page to trade for something you’ll love!

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I wouldn’t call myself a master painter, but I know how to have a good time with paint and a brush. My sweetheart gave me an Art Toolkit palette as a gift. I filled it with paint and took it out for a spin in the video.

Keeping painting practice fun and loose

• Don’t make it an ordeal. I keep a loaded palette on my couchside table, along with other random things art supplies I love.

• Do it every day, but not in an art-challenge type of way where you need to post something to Instagram. Just do it for yourself! Secretly, if that’s what you need.

• Experiment! Explore! You’ll learn more from mixing colors without a plan than creating a masterpiece.

This video covers:

• preventing dried-up crusty, crumbly, cracked gouache

• choosing paint colors, placement, and palette size

• not wasting a single drop of paint so you can use materials freely

• I share my work from an outing with my newly-mixed palette

More things I painted with my tiny Art Toolkit palette

Related posts

• That Silly Color Wheel - why you may be mixing muddy colors.

• Inside my Ugly Drawing Bag - mixing limited materials to squeeze every inch of color from them.
  Short & Sweet Supply List - a perfect place to start for going out drawing or revisiting the basics.

• Sketching Out & About - materials to draw some fast-moving, trouble-making kittens from inside a conference room at the Humane Society.

• Art Materials Mega Thread - community-wide discussion of art supplies we love, loathe, and are curious to try.

If you’re new here, welcome! If you’re not new here, welcome back! Thank you for being here. I look forward to drawing with you again!

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Nothing tickles my heart like seeing artists support each other.1 This thread is for you to spread the word to the community about which supplies you love and loathe!

In the comments, share:

• The material you LOVE drawing with the most

• A material you’ve been wanting to try or are CURIOUS about

• What supplies didn’t float your boat? Add them to the Art Supply Swap!

Be sure to include links where we can find & follow you online!

New to drawing or looking to try something new?

Type CURIOUS in the comments, and we’ll be happy to share some fun recommendations.

Introvert Drawing Club

Live drawing sessions for everyone. 🌻 Helping artists connect through drawing together. ✏️ Workshops, art advice, and feedback from a kind, supportive community. 🐢

By Beth Spencer

👇 LIVE SESSIONS & ARCHIVE

✏️ LIVE SESSION CALENDAR - Sign up to draw in live drawing practice sessions.

✨ SESSION REPLAYS - More than 80 recordings of drawing sessions & workshops with visiting artists to draw to.

⭐️ ARCHIVE - View posts in chronological order and catch up on what you missed.

Prompts, Tips, and Techniques

✨ New to drawing? - Learn classic techniques and brush up on the basics.

✨ Prompts - Exercises to loosen up, learn drawing techniques, and get inspired!

👯‍♂️ People Skills - A month of people-drawing practice.

🧜‍♂️ Character Development - Prompts for creating memorable, original characters.

🎨 Color - Exploring a new color each month with paint and mixed media.

✏️ Materials - Art supplies and subjects to keep you excited to practice drawing.

✨ Drawing in Public - Exploring the joy and spontaneity of drawing on location.

😳 Awkward Drawing Episode Replays - Drawing live with brilliant guest artists!

✨ Accountability - Support for maintaining focus and resisting distractions.

Practice by Category

• Horses - From our month of horses!

• Dogs - Years worth of canine content.

• Cats - Tutorials, tips, and live session recordings.

• People - We had a whole month of people-practice January 2025!

• Anthropomorphic Animals - Drawing games and super fun session recordings.

• Drawing basics - Great for a refresh of classic techniques.

• Explore Color - Master mixing and creating harmonious palettes that sing!

Community

✨ Chat! - Share swatches, works in progress, and ask questions about materials!

✨ Art Materials Mega Thread - What’s keeping us excited to open a sketchbook

✨ Art Supply Swap - Trade gently-used art supplies with fellow members.

✨ Milestones - A place to celebrate creative wins and give high-fives!

Feel free to comment with any questions or feedback. I love to help!

Leave a comment

These materials are versatile, portable, and more affordable. They're eco-friendly (you can refill these markers!), high quality, and most importantly, fun to use. In the video for paid members, I show my favorite ways to use them.

Supplies to start or refresh your drawing practice

1. Royal Talens Art Creation Sketchbook - Like a less costly Moleskine with more pages.

2. Royal Talens Ecoline Brush Pen Markers - I like Apricot, Pastel Blue, Gold Ochre, Lemon Yellow, Pastel Red, and Sepia Light.

3. Caran d'Ache Neocolor II Aquarelle Artists' Pastel - These are the hardest working tools in my kit! I use them wet, dry, and everything in between. They’re the most fun in the summer because they get super soft and melty.

4. Derwent Inktense Pencils - I often use these dark colors for line work. Madder Brown, Lagoon, and Peacock Blue are my favorites.

These aren’t affiliate links. I only get the satisfaction of sharing the things I love drawing with!

After spending 100 days using only three materials (four if you count a sketchbook), I can say with authority that these tools play together beautifully. They still keep me excited to take my sketchbook out and draw every day.

Have you signed up for the next session?

Sign up

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My Folktale Week art was 80% finished and I repainted the whole thing. Some might say starting over is pure silliness. But sometimes it’s worth the trouble.

I'll talk more about that process in the video below. If you find yourself thinking of starting over near the end, here are some tips:

Do it again if:

• You already did it once and it was fun

• The Art Supplies Fairy recently visited with fun materials for you to try

• You recently learned a new technique and want to practice it

When social media enters the equation, as it does in most modern drawing challenges, I like to be mindful of my intentions.

These are my finished Folktale Week illustrations using the words Lost, Ink, Sea, Sleep, Underground, Illusion, and Found.

Ask these questions before starting over:

• Am I doing this to get more likes?

• Do I want to imitate someone else's style or way of working?

• Is this procrastination?

If you answer YES to any of those three, it might be best to pack a bag and go draw something new instead of starting over.

I share my final Folktale Week process video below.

As a paid member, you get weekly practice prompts to keep you excited about opening your sketchbook, twice-monthly live sessions to strengthen your drawing skills, access to the Feedback Forum and the full library of session & and workshop replays to keep you creating art every day!

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Using too many materials can feel like you’re stuck at a crowded nightclub way past your bedtime. A limited palette can be like an intimate gathering with close friends.

Making 100 drawings using only three materials1 taught me to be a bit more considerate in my color choices. I have a whole new appreciation for the color yellow! Mixing yellow makes me feel like I just took a bite of lemon pound cake.

Hard parts of the 3 Materials Challenge

Making something for Instagram every day: It’s the WORST. I’d rather make a birthday card for my worst enemy. Making art specifically for social media sucks the joy from it. I took the pressure off by making 2 or 3 illustrations for fun, instead of creating a single drawing to post.

Committing to materials: I spent more time swatching supplies than drawing some days. I'd close my eyes and pick something to get the ball rolling, then base my other two choices on the random grab. Here’s a short & sweet supply list I made for you!

Sharing my work: Remembering to shoot a photo and post it every day takes a backseat to client work. If you find the photography part challenging, here's a post I made about it!

Prompt

Next time you sit down to draw, close your eyes to choose your first material. No peeking! Then make your next choices based on what you picked without looking. I’d love to know what you picked and why you chose the next colors!

P.S. I intended to make the video below viewable for all members, but the drawings were so bad that I paywalled them. Why do I paywall bad drawings? Can we all agree that ugly drawings are special and valuable to who we are as artists? They teach us so much! It seems fair to save those moments for the kind folks who invest in my practice. There will be chances to win free membership in the live session on Sunday, as well as stickers and pins!

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Lately I’ve got brush pens filled with liquid watercolor mixes swirling around in my brain and I wanted to share the materials with you. Mixing and working beautifully with water-soluble and other wet supplies is fun!

Why mix colors & brands inside the brush?

Creating your own colors1 means you have something truly unique to you. I mix the brands below because they don’t fully emulsify, so I get a bit of a surprise at the end of the brush every time I use one. Goodbye, expectations. Hello happy, fun drawing experience!

Would I use these for final art? Probably not. Will practicing drawing in this relaxed way translate to final art? It hasn’t failed me yet!

In the video below for paid members, I show how I mix my favorite colors and go through some of the drawings I made on a trip. I’d love to share with you!

Materials & Mentions:

Daler Rowney Aquafine - So luscious! And quite concentrated.
Ecoline Liquid Watercolor - So nice to mix with the Daler Rowney above.
Dr. Ph. Martin's Hydrus Fine Art Liquid Watercolors - Not my favorite, but I do use them because they were $2.99 at Art Center. Kinda chunky. Do not recommend.
Pentel Aquash Water Brush Mini Round - Perfect size and squish level. If you have a clogged one (and a bit of patience and time) here’s a video on how to clean them.
Zoo Cam - An annual subscription is worth every penny for practicing animals. Incredible quality and the Lincoln Park Zoo lion pride will send your heart into orbit!

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Because I’m only allowed 30 minutes per drawing, I always include at least one wet material to quickly color important areas. It’s usually a marker if I’m on the go. I love acrylic markers for their mixing magic.

They’re so fun to push around and pump on a page. I like when too much marker fluid leaks out, because then I’ll just mix the pigment with what’s already there it to create a new color from them. Something about that makes my brain very happy. It’s the same feeling I get when I pour too much syrup on my oatmeal.

I wanted to practice drawing environments, so I’ve picked a subject and drawn their surroundings each day. If I’m drawing a pet, I like to zoom in on the subject. Sometimes I focus more on drawing the environment, like in a restaurant.

This challenge has already given me confidence in drawing environments that I didn’t have before. My days at the zoo have focused less on digging for the perfect colored pencil and more on just getting some color down and figuring out the rest later.

Five ways to approach limiting your palette.

Light, dark, and midtone - Focus on capturing shadows and light
Complimentary colors - Colors across from each other on the color wheel
All the same materials - Try all wet or all dry
One material you never use - Show some old, dry ballpoint pen a bit of love!

The hardest part of any art challenge is creating something to post every day that others will see. It adds a bit of pressure, but pushing through that discomfort is easier when you’re practicing regularly.

Do you have a strategy or material you use every day? Do divulge in the comments!

More posts about limiting your materials:

Materials & Mentions

In the video, I mention
Patreon
Lily Wood - Modifying Posca markers (Thanks to Cassie for this)
Montana Inks
Posca Pens
And thanks to for asking me to make this video!

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It felt like a good time to draw, so I grabbed a yellow marker to sketch the important things around me. I started with the fun shape of the car window, the trees outside, and of course, Reggie.

Reggie’s taught me a lot about drawing; I've taught him how to chill out at the vet. Drawing in the car beforehand helped us both destress.

Reggie has a history of traumatizing vet visits and gets so wound up that he makes my anxiety shoot to the moon. We've dosed him with doggie drugs and melatonin in the past, but that didn't help, so I don’t bother with them anymore.

This time I distracted him with bites of shredded chicken and promises of peanut butter. Leighann the vet tech said he was absolute gentleman during his exam. I've never more proud! 🥹

Reggie is a very, very good boy who happens to be deeply motivated by food. He’d solve algebra equations for a treat smeared with peanut butter.

I was still smiling about Reggie's happy exam that afternoon. As I recalled the frantic yellow marker sketch I'd made in the car, I returned that energy to the sketchbook. I added the details with a brown Stabilo pencil and a jade Neocolor.

What is your favorite thing to smear peanut butter on? Mine is apples!

The rules are simple:

✏️ Draw from life every day. ✏️ Use only 3 materials for each drawing. ✏️ Spend no more than 30 mins on each drawing.

Things I consider when limiting materials

• Pick one color you always like. Mine is usually yellow.

• Consider how the colors will look mixed together or layered

• Make sure to have at least one dark color for your lines (almost always Derwent Inktense pencils).

I also started the drawing below at the vet, then finished it up at home on video with a little chat about my process.

In the video below for paid members, I share my process for finishing a sketch I started at the vet clinic. What else do you get with a paid subscription?

More posts about limiting your materials

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This sketchbook was with me during a difficult month. I’m grateful to have it around to remind me how much creativity and play can get me through hard times.

I made a little video tour below for paid members to show everything in the sketchbook.

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I had a whole guided drawing session/game where we made blob-jects the whole time! I highly recommend it if you want to have a play with materials or loosen up before working on a project.

It was such a fun playtime session. But I made the below to show you how I create blob-jects from a variety of materials. Speaking of, use whatever medium you like! Watercolor, coffee, gouache, and markers work nicely.

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