Some of the basic tools and equipment for painting are palette knife, dipper, easels, palette cups, canvas clips, brush washer, wooden palette, paper palette and others.
Palette cups are attached to the palette and used for holding small quantities of thinner or solvent or medium. Some palette cups comes with airtight cap with rubber seal, others has plastic cap , it is either single or double palette cups.
Palette knife is used for applying paint, particularly impasto effects and for scraping paint off paintings in progress. Spatulas and scrapers are for mixing pastes and scraping paint in large volume. All these tools can be used interchangeably. It is great for acrylic and stainless steel palette knife does not rust. Each handle is mounted on natural hardwood.
There are a large variety of easels in the market. A French easel folds up into a box , mostly for outdoor use. On the other hand, a studio easel should be sturdy built of hardwood, aluminum or steel with heavy metal fastener and has to be versatile to handle various sizes and weights of picture. Also available are wooden easels of various sizes both for outdoor and indoor. New concept and modern design easel can be used as a standard vertical studio easel or converted into a working desk for watercolor and different use and techniques.
Light aluminum easels are popular among lady artists because of its light weight and ease of transport and is versatile. The aluminum easel when folded is compact and it has a black bag that comes with it.
Some artists find it more organize to have their paints and other accessories put in a sketch box. Available are oiled, stain resistant beech wood sketch box of different sizes, tin lined drawers with adjustable metal dividers to customize the compartments for brushes and other supplies. Also available are aluminum sketch box for hooking on to aluminum easels, it is very light and is popular among artists, hobbyists, and lady artists.
Wooden palette and paper palette is used for mixing oil colors. There are oval shape, rectangular shape wooden palette of various sizes.
Air tight brush washer with rubber seal keeps solvent available for repeated used. It is safe and convenient for travel. There are some brush washer with spiral wire on the handle to hang brushes. The turpentine in the brush washers can be reused for up to a few months, thus saving on cost of turpentine.
Canvas carriers are sold in set of 4 pieces and some comes with handle.
