Through the years teaching Art to homeschoolers, we have experimented with many Art supplies and mediums. Some have been wonderful and inspired creativity in us and the kiddos while others have flopped. We’re sharing 99+ of our favorite art supplies gift guide for kids of all ages!
We’re not art supply name brand snobs! (Except maybe crayons!)
More expensive does not always mean better art!
We also love art supplies for educational tools for the kinesthetic and visual learner to draw, color or illustrate the subject they are learning. Many kids enjoy coloring while a book is read aloud to them because it helps them retain the information better.
Speaking of reading and artwork, we love finding books on art, about art, art themed or just great creativity inspiring books. If you can gift a book with art supplies you help a child spur their imagination. *Post contains affiliate links.
The ultimate gift guide for the artistic child or the child at heart. We have pulled together our favorite Art supplies, books and Bible verse ideas to remind someone that creativity is a gift from God.
To help make shopping easy, we pulled our favorite art supplies together from Amazon. We picked items that inspire creativity no matter what age or ability! We have divided each art supply into 3 age levels and categories. You can incorporate most of these with ideas from our Pinterest Boards.
The selections for young creatives are our picks for toddler to early elementary age kiddos.
The selections for older creatives are our picks for older elementary age to older teens.
The selections for young at heart! These could be junior high, highschool, college and beyond. We all need a little creative fun!
Of course we’ve included items that also remind your creative loved one in God’s Word with Bible verse items! *post contains affiliate links. We make a small commission from sales, but you aren’t charged a single penny.
We love to add reminders in God’s Word to every gift, event or place we go. If you need more ideas, you can find Bible verse coloring pages here in just about any style you like.
Let’s discuss a few terms to help us all meander through the Art supply world.
If you look at Wikipedia or The Dictionary for “crayon”, you’ll see confusing information.
“It is a stick used to mark or draw made from wax, chalk and other materials”…. well that’s clear. Right?
No one knows exactly when crayons came to be used, but we do know they were used in at least the 1600’s. Pretty much anything that can mark and be held in your hands, fits into the term “crayon”.
If it’s a marking stick made from oil, it is called a pastel…. except there’s chalk pastels. You can see how confusing shopping for art supplies can be! Oh, and don’t forget there’s paint crayons!
We will show you what we like and why and the kid’s reactions to each product below. *This post contains affiliate links.
The “crayon” most known to use in coloring books is a stick made from wax mixed with pigment. The result is the waxy coloring tool kids love to use. But there is a definite difference in the coloring results depending on which crayon brand used.
Why?
It’s the same as why one chocolate chip cookie tastes different from another chocolate chip cookie, the amount of each ingredient used in the recipe!
If a company uses a paraffin wax or beeswax it will change the feel of the coloring motion and the amount of wax distributed. The mount of pigment mixed into the wax and what kind of pigment is used will change the coloring result and amount of color viewed.
A crayon with a higher ratio of wax to pigment will distribute a little amount of blotchy color and a build up of wax. Too much wax will blob up your artwork because your paper can only handle so much wax build up before the crayon stops working for you.
There’s a sweet spot in just the right wax and pigment mixture that allows you a smooth coloring experience and a lovely amount of color to your artwork!
Too much wax also tends to make the color on the paper less or diluted from what they stick appears to be. This frustrates many kids who want to see the color on their paper that they have in their hands. If they don’t get the results they envisioned, they decide immediately that they don’t like crayons.
Don’t believe us? Grab a cheap crayon and compare with our favorite. Color with them and you’ll discover not all black crayons are equal! Discover our Bible Art Lesson on crayons here.
The publishing world has been busy the last ten years creating coloring books in just about every subject and style imaginable. The coloring books of a child’s early years have been given a more mature flare! Rather than big open coloring areas with bold black outline drawings, coloring books can be crammed full of tiny details and patterns.
Coloring has been found to help reduce stress. The motion can help some kids focus and is a great warm up to start the day!
But coloring books can also be educational! Our favorite educational coloring books are from Dover Publishing. They have more subjects than we could ever list. For the best shopping experience, type in the subject or theme you are studying followed by “Dover Coloring Book” in your search field. Here’s some we know kids enjoy. Below are some of our favorites, but you can find your favs here. 
There are too many coloring books published and available for us to choose and are in an a wide range of subjects. Click here for coloring books for all ages and coloring fun. Consider what your younger, older, and creative at heart are most interested in and love.
Coloring books can be used with crayons, colored pencils, markers, pastels, chalk and even watercolors if you are careful with the amount of water used.
Oh #2 pencil……you have been the pencil most prescribed by elementary schools and standardized tests, but you are not the only number for Art!
The higher the number, the more charcoal, graphite or color you can use to draw. The higher the number, the softer the medium and the greater ability to smear and blend. Discover more about pencils in our Bible Art Lesson for Pencils here.
It is also a messier pencil.
Charcoal and graphite can be in a stick (more a compressed rectangular shape) or in pencil form surrounded by wood. The pencil helps keep the mess down and since you have been trained to hold a pencil, it’s less intimidating to begin your drawing skills.
Play with the different levels of softness and hardness in this medium.
The kids in our class are a mixed bag of results. Some liked the blend ability a softer pencil allowed, while others were offended by the smears in areas their hands touched while drawing. We have had kiddos who could not handle the spots or smears left on their paper. Some kids feel like the smears helped make their drawings look more realistic!
Like coloring books, drawing books come in every age, levela and subject that you can imagine.
Want to make a child really feel like an artist? Give them a pack of watercolor pencils, a paint brush and a cup of water. At first glance, these amazing pencils look like regular colored pencils.
So deceiving, unless you read the side of the pencil you will have a hard time distinguishing between them.
But once you see the magic happen with water, you will quickly pick up on the difference.
Rather than wax that makes up a colored pencil, watercolor pencils react to water rather than repelling water. This allows the color to blend into a watercolor effect. The results are beautiful.
Once your watercolor artwork is dry, you can layer details on top with colored pencils.
Colored pencils can also be layered and give a smoother result than crayons. Most colored pencils contain enough wax that watercolors cannot be used on top of them.
For beginners, we love Crayola and as kids progress, Prisma.
Chalk is not just the white sticks used by teacher on a chalkboard anymore. Not many teachers even use it because of the messy powder and residue that needed to be cleaned daily. Remember the Little House on the Prairie episodes where a child would be punished by washing the chalkboard?
Chalk is calcite found in sedimentary rocks such as limestone. It is powder that is mixed with a gum to help it bind together into a stick form. It’s already white powder so it mixes easily with powdered pigments to make colored chalks.
This is where not all chalks are equal.
Pigments aren’t cheap so it’s hard to get saturated colored in cheap chalk pastels. This is an area we spend a little more for the kids to use. We want them to have a great experience with the supplies and feel inspired to keep creating. If there is not much difference in the pink, orange, and white chalk or the yellow and blue chalk colors when they use them, they are left dissatisfied.
For sidewalk chalk, the bold and bright colors from Crayola may us happy! The sticks are shaped just like crayons only bigger and the colors are just as they appear.
For chalk on paper, we love the intense colors in this set. But you have to remember that chalk is fragile. So the frustrations that come with using chalk are the breakage, less ability to keep a sharp edge for smaller details, messiness and the feel of this medium on their hands.
Chalk is messy and smears easily. If a child touches the chalk too much it will almost disappear from their paper. Many kids hate the strange way their fingers and hands feel with the chalk on their hands. The powder leaves a dry residue that irritates the kids so they want to keep washing their hands.
For fun chalk project ideas for rainy days when you can’t go outside with sidewalk chalk, mix it up indoors with black and white cardstock. Chalk is beautiful contrast on black!
Scratch paper has been around for a long time now, but boy has it improved!
Years ago when we were in Elementary school, we made scratch paper with crayons and a chalky black paint. But it didn’t always work like you wanted it. ‘
Now, there is scratch paper that when scratched, reveals various colors underneath the black coating and the scratched markings are smooth and crisp!
For Egyptian Art studies we have used the metallic gold reveals which made beautiful artwork.
We’ve also used a cheaper version with not so good results. If the scratchable top layer is too tightly adhered to the underneath layer, it won’t scratch off easily or at all. Some papers require a hard pressure, sharper tool or worse, needs so much pressure that holes begin to rip the paper.
Since scratch paper is paper, you can cut it into any shape you like for really cool art ideas!
We can assure you, this brand gives great results! Look at one of our precious student’s inspired Starry Night!
Markers come in multiple bases, such as water, alcohol, acrylic, stain and oil for just about any use. The safe ones for kids and your home are water based markers.!
Water based markers are washable and react with water. But that does not mean you should go marking all over you walls, furniture or clothing! Some pigments can still leave a stain on surfaces especially if they are porous or chalky such as flat latex house paint.
Unlike crayons, cheaper markers seem to deliver the level of color that you see on the outside, but the bigger issue is the amount of color wetness on the paper. Many cheap markers create dry areas and lines if you layer on top of an already colored area or they dry out before you finish a larger coloring section.
That’s very disappointing.
What we love about Crayola Markers is the nib (the part you color with on the tip). The tips are wider which allows you to color larger areas by leaning the marker slightly to the side. For finer details, the tip is tapered to a point.
The kid’s markers are a good size for little hands to hold. But if you want a finer tip marker for smaller details, you’re in luck, they have those too.
Because they are water based, if they begin to dry out, you can dip them in water and use them as water color paint. The ink reacts with water so after you color with them, apply a wet brush to move the ink around a little or dilute areas for a pretty effect.
One of our favorite art activities to do with toddlers and older is dot markers. Dabbing colored dots onto paper or dot pages is fun!
But buying cheap daubers can be a complete fiasco when they spill and bleed.
These dot markers have been our favorite so far for not bleeding. They do take few minutes for the dots to dry. They can bleed through your color page so we recommend placing a piece of paper under your art or between your coloring book pages to keep things neat.
Alcohol markers range in price and ability from Sharpies to Copic and Chamelon Markers. Sharpies are the most affordable and dependable for just about any use.
But because they are alcohol base, Sharpies are not going to wash easily off of surfaces. Actually, the side of the marker says, “permanent”. This is why many moms do not allow their kiddos to play with Sharpies. The good news is that the removal is possible depending on the surface or fabric that has been marked.
Sharpies will mark over most Art mediums so they are great for mixed medium projects, detailing and outlining!
An oil based or lacquer coating can activate the marker’s ink and cause it to smear or bleed. In those cases, an oil based Sharpie or paint pen might be a better choice.
Copic and Chameleon Markers create amazing artwork that has a digital effect, but on paper. They beauty of their use is the ability to blend you ink with other colors and layer colors. But these markers are on the pricy end of art supplies. If your child is wanting to stretch their coloring ability and artwork we recommend these. This is one of the only times we’ll say spend a little more!
Carrie drew and colored flowers on her washing machine. She began with Sharpies and tried to blend the ink with alcohol and Q-tips. Then she switched to her Chameleon Markers. The difference in the effects was the Sharpies ink separated and diluted. Greens became yellows. While the Chameleons keep saturated colors, blend and layer.
Chameleon Markers are our pick for the teen artist venturing in their art!
For years, kids have been painting with a pan or packed watercolor. We’ve used them in our classes, but the kids struggle with getting the colors to be darker, more pigment and less diluted.
The issue is water colors need water to activate them, but the water also dilutes the darker value of color. Discover Bible Art lessons about watercolors here.
That’s when we discovered liquid water colors. They are more saturated color and satisfy not only the kiddos, but also mom with the washable clean up!
Another great watercolor product is watercolor pencils. Because watercolor pencils are in a pencil form, you have less mess. You can layer colors and blend by using a paintbrush and water. We also love a water brush especially traveling on the road.
Along with the liquid watercolors, we also love paint crayons.
Paint in a stick! Kids love the mess free ability to create art and mom’s love that the paint allows for better control and less mess.
For older kids, tempera paint and acrylic paint is a great medium to inspire creativity. Both are water based and can be cleaned up easily with soap and water. But, clothing can be damaged if either are not immediately washed or attended to after coming in contact with the paint.
Finger painting is a fun activity for kids of all ages. We still use finger painting in our older classes and even our mother’s night out painting night.
You’re probably wondering why we added Elmer’s School Glue to our list. Well…. we use that glue for so many different Art applications. Not only can you glue paper or craft supplies to make art, but you can make slime with the glue, do acrylic paint pouring art, mix paint into it for outlining works of art and even use it to hold down sand in artwork.
Tactile and sensory creative mediums are a must for the hands on learners. It’s amazing to watch a child who does not like to color, draw, paint or use chalk find their creative niche in clay. They become hyper focused and the end results are astonishing 3D creations!
We like different clay options for different ideas. For the colorful creations that air dry, we like a poly/clay. Because we do not have access to a kiln, and few people do, we like a modeling clay that air dries and is paintable. Crayola’s white clay is perfect!
Oil pastels are a love hate relationship for Art teachers. We love oil pastels, but hate the clean up when the pastel gets in and on the wrong surface. But the end results in artworks are worth all the cleanup!
Oil pastels blend and the colors are vibrant and true to what you see. Again, Crayola for the win with older kiddos.
We do not recommend using oil pastels for younger creatives without parental assistance.
Gel pens can produce beautiful and colorful works of art. A good gel pen will draw, color and do font work for the creative mind!
Younger creatives will enjoy the array of colors and the easy glide of the pen’s ball point to paper.
But older creatives of all ages will find many uses for gel pens. Doodling is our favorite activity for them. We can highly recommend the Paper Mate and the Bic gel pens for hours of creative color!
The 240 count pack of gel pens is great to play with because there are so many colors including neons, sparkles, glitter and pastels. Our only issue is they don’t seem to last as long. Or maybe we are just having too much fun drawing with them to notice how much ink we have used.
Our favorite white pens are the Uniball Signa pens. These doodle wonderfully over a black Sharpie Marker or darker colors of paint.
Paint by stickers are just what their name implies. There are fantastic pictures that are created by planing a numbered sticker onto the corresponding number. Similar to Paint by Number painting, but with pre colored stickers!
Paint by Stickers is recommended for Older Creatives and Creative at Heart. It is a great motor skill for older kids and a focus moment for everyone.
We also use dot stickers to color in our Dot Markers Books or to create art in dots.
Origami is the art of folding paper into sculptures and forms. It is using paper folding as a potter uses clay to create 3D shapes, items and creations.
There are so many books on origami for all ages, but honestly, everyone begins with the beginning no matter your age or level.
In our opinion, Art can be more than the standard art supplies. Anything that you can use to express a thought or illustrate a message to a viewer can be an art supply. Mixed media is combining different art mediums together. Textiles can create amazing works of art in various methods such as sewing, embroidery, crochet, knitting, fashion design and crazy fun supplies that let you be creative!
Placing your art supplies in a gift bag is pretty, but having something to carry and organize your art supplies is purposeful!
When it has a Bible verse on it to remind you who you are and who God is, it’s even more meaningful and purposeful!
Our desire is that each kid and kid at heart discovers a favorite art supply or medium that helps them glorify God in their God given creativity.
Giving a child the gift of creativity is given them the freedom to play, create, explore, design, invent and share their gifts with others. Help them find ways to glorify God with their creativity!
Discover how we love combining 2 of our favorites to teach Art using the Bible and Bible using Art. This post is filled with how creativity is a God given gift we all have and can use to glorify Him in many ways.
Some of these books we recommend in our Heart of You, Young at HeART and our new HeART History online Art courses you can find in our Bible Art Membership, ReMEMBERers!
We would love for you to join us for Art and Bible courses along with lessons, resources, printables and worksheets to remind you that you are special to God. Use your creative God given gifts to glorify Him.
Let us know what creative books you enjoy too!
We would love to tell you more about becoming a ReMEMBERer.
Access our online Bible studies and resources anytime and anywhere.
Our desire is sharing God’s Word and love through creative resources for all learning styles.
