My Favorite Things 2024 Edition

In this post, I’m dishing on my favorite art supplies and more in 2024!

Hello Friends! I hope you all had a wonderful Holiday Season and are ready to tackle the new year with fresh ideas and inspiration to fuel your creative mojo.

Every so often, I enjoy compiling a list of my favorite things to use in the studio and beyond.

This year I’m sharing some of my top items in assorted categories along with a couple of personal/business-related items that I’m finding helpful all around.

**While I have you-don’t forget to take a look at what’s on special over in my shop in my year-end sale!

My Favorite Things 2024 Round-Up

Acrylic Pens

You can’t go wrong with the Posca Pen brand of acrylic paint pens. I've been using the fine and ultra-fine white paint pens in a lot of my art for mark-making and detail work. They are great for art journaling as well.

Posca Pens-Ultra Fine

You can find them here.

Illustrating/Drawing Pens

If you have been following my work for a while, you know that I love illustrating my more whimsical pieces with permanent ink artist pens. The PERMANENT part is important because you don’t want your ink to smear over your artwork. For the value and the range of sizes, Micron takes the lead in this category.

Micron Pens-6 Pack

Check them out here.

Watercolor Brushes

You might wonder why I’m including watercolor brushes when I mostly paint in acrylics. Valid point, but what you may not know is that watercolor was my first genre of art and that I love to go back to every so often. Most recently I created a ton of watercolors for my “School of Fish Workshop”. These are some of my new favorite brushes that I’ve recently found that are value-priced but work extremely well in a variety of processes.

Neptune Watercolor Brushes-Assorted Pack

Learn more here.

Mark Making Tools

Silicone scraping tools are a staple for both my acrylic work and my cold wax and oil paintings. You can’t beat the price on this 5 piece set and the variety of sizes allows you to make fun marks on both small and larger pieces.

5 Piece Silicone Scraper Set

See them Here.

Best Value Canvases

I’ve used a bunch of different canvases over the years and one thing I can tell you from experience is that the thin, cheap canvas will not hold up to the type of work I do. You don’t want to worry about warping or holes appearing due to rough mixed media experimenting, especially after putting so much effort into your work.

The Edge canvases consistently have the best prices on Amazon and Jerry’s, and furthermore, they are made with high-quality canvas material.

The Edge Canvases by Creative Mark

Learn more here.

Best All Around Art Journal

Year in and year out, my favorite journal remains the same. My vote is for the Dylusions Creative Journal by Ranger for its all-around durability and quality. Believe me, I’ve put the pages to the test with collage, layers of paint, scraping, gluing, and illustrating. It’s not for watercolor but if you are a mixed media artist and want to embark on the world of art journaling-this is a winner.

Dylusions Creative Journal by Ranger 8 1/2 x 11

Check it out over here.

Dylusions Creative Journal for Mixed Media Artists

New Favorite Brush for Blending

Would you believe I’ve never used a mop brush or not very often until 2024? I’m always looking for new ways to add dimension and texture to my work but there are times when I just want smooth transitions for a more soft look between color edges. I have a variety of mop brushes now in different sizes but felt this was a good size to get started with for medium-sized work.

3/4 inch Princeton Velvetouch

Must-Have Medium

No surprise here- Glazing Medium is a staple in my studio and part of my acrylic paint set up every time I paint. I should own stock in this medium! Why do I love it? It provides extra open time for my paints, it can thin out your paint without watering down the pigments, and you can create glazes to add dimension to your colors in a fresh way. I do prefer the satin sheen over gloss as I don’t like my work to be shiny (at least the majority of time).

Golden’s Satin Glazing Medium for Acrylic Paint

See it over here.

Golden’s SoFlat Acrylic Paint

NEW to my favorites list—Golden SoFlat Acrylic. I’m just starting to experiment with these paints and feel that they are a great addition to my paint collection as they are opaque unlike most of Golden’s fluid paint which is fairly translucent.

My favorite color so far is Naphthol Pink thanks to one of my students in my workshop at Dillman’s.

This type of paint would also work well for art journaling or illustrative work for the same reasons one would use gauche but with the bonus benefit of much more durability.

Pop Set

Zing Set

Bonus Favorites

Mel Robbins Podcast

I go back and forth between listening to Audible, watching YouTube videos, and listening to Podcasts while I work. My ‘bonus’ daughter (not stepdaughter but close enough), Abbie, suggested the Mel Robbins podcast as a great motivational podcast because she is all about health, productivity, mindfulness, emotional intelligence and more.

Mel has a way of breaking down complicated topics so that they are relatable and accessible to everyone. She also has a great sense of humor and doesn’t take herself too seriously. Who needs preachy people? No thanks! :)

Mel Robbins Podcast can be found on Spotify or Apple podcasts. Check out her podcast home by going here.

NUULY Clothes Rental Subscription

This may not be a ‘thing’ for everyone but I thought I’d share this new service, Nuuly, I’ve been using since August. My bonus daughter also suggested I try this as I was over Stitch Fix (too many of the same clothes and overpriced for me).

I don’t love shopping for clothes in person. I become overwhelmed and overstimulated but I do like to change up my wardrobe and I’d rather get quality pieces rather than throw away cheap threads to wear.

I feel like I’ve saved money because I’ve found pieces for at least 6 major events in the last few months that would have easily cost me over $100 each, plus I also had 5 other pieces to wear each month on top of my special occasion pieces.

Change up your wardrobe monthly with NUULY. PLUS-they also have a thrift shop you can purchase clothes at a HUGE discount in addition to renting pieces.

Before You Go

The final days of my Holiday Christmas Course sale are here. If you had your eye on one of my online art workshops, now is the time to snag your favorite. All of my classes are 30-50% off.

PLUS I’m giving another $40 off my flagship course, Abstract Interactive-Self Study course.

That’s an additional $40 off the sale price for almost half of the regular retail price. This special ends on 12/31/2024. Be sure to use code: HOLIDAY40 at checkout.

All other courses are already marked at the sale price.

See all courses

Early Bird Special Ends Soon!

Have you reserved your spot for Paint Your Heart and Soul 2025? We begin soon—here’s the countdown. Reserve your spot today and save 41% off the regular price!

Early Bird SALE: $145 ONLY for 52 master classes!
PLUS a FREE BONUS: Color Alchemy

Learn more about this year-long course by stopping over HERE.