Buying Art Supplies in Sets
Making an Informed Decision
Buying art supplies in sets can be a cost effective way to beef up your inventory of art. Granted, you might only need a specific color or two. But in most cases, when an artist is just starting out, they’ll purchase by the set. Initially, this can be costly, but compared to purchasing each color individually…well, consider it buying in bulk. Just like shopping at Costco, buying in greater quantity drives the individual cost of each item down. Still, there are some things to consider.
Copic markers (Photo Credit: 123RF.com Copyright: Konstantin Kolidzei)
First and foremost is your budget. Buying art supplies in sets can be costly at first. You might not have enough for a full set right off the bat. If this is the case, see if you can get at least the basic colors individually. For example, some colored pencil sets can run almost $500 for the biggest mack-daddy set of 120 pencils. I know everyone wants the 120 set, but perhaps you can start off with the set of 24 pencils for the time being.
Faber Castell Polychromos Colored Pencils (Photo credit: Myra Naito)
Secondly, you should consider that some supplies only come as a set and do not offer individual colors open stock. What does this mean? Well, if you run out of one color, you have to go buy the entire set again to replace just that one color! Always make sure that you can buy open stock. Some marker sets are not only open stock but are refillable. Talk about making your dollar stretch!
Finally…
If you’re buying art supplies in sets, resist the temptation to buy student grade sets. Yes, they are much cheaper. But you’re better off buying a smaller set of artist grade supplies. Student grade sets aren’t as expensive because the quality of the product isn’t as good as artist grade supplies. For example, most artist grade supplies will measure up to a certain level of lightfastness. This is important if you’re selling your work. Student grade supplies generally do not go through the expensive process of testing for lightfastness. They may actually claim that they are, but if you question the company on it and ask for the ratings scale for each color, they’ll fess up and admit that they don’t actually test them. Also, with some products like pencils, student grade will be more prone to having hard, gritty chunks in the graphite or pigment. Not good when you’re trying to achieve a smooth finish.
So be a responsible buyer and do your research before investing a good chunk of change on an art set. Check for things like lightfastness, customer reviews, what other artists doing similar work have to say about them, are they sold open stock, etc. If you’re going to drop your hard earned cash on art supplies, make sure the supplies you’re investing in will be well worth it!
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