Best Art Supplies for Beginners in Pakistan
You don't need forty colours and a drawer of brushes to start. Here's the short list that actually gets you painting.
A beginner painter needs about six things, not sixty. The starter kits sold as "complete sets" often bundle colours and tools you won't touch for months. Buy the short list below, paint for a few weeks, and add to it only when you actually run out of something or hit a wall a specific tool would solve.
The six things to buy first
This list works whether you're starting with acrylic or watercolour — the logic is the same either way.
- A limited palette — red, yellow, blue, white, black. Five tubes, not twenty. You will mix more useful colours from these than from a pre-made set of thirty, and you'll actually learn how colour works.
- Two or three brushes — one flat, one round, one smaller detail brush. Synthetic bristle brushes work fine for both acrylic and watercolour and cost less than natural hair.
- A pad of paper or a few canvas boards — not stretched canvas yet. Canvas boards are flat, cheap, and forgiving to practice on.
- A palette — even a plastic plate works, but a proper mixing palette with wells helps you keep colours separate.
- Water container and rag — for watercolour, two jars (one clean, one dirty). For acrylic, one jar and a rag, because acrylic dries fast and you'll be rinsing brushes often.
- Pencil and eraser — for sketching your composition before you commit paint to it.
Mentioned in this guide
Mont Marte Kneadable Erasers 2Pcs
What to skip for now
Easels, a full 24-colour set, mediums and varnishes, and specialty papers can all wait. None of them make your first paintings better — they solve problems you haven't run into yet. Buying them now is money that would be better spent on more paper to practice on.
Affordable watercolour sets
If watercolour is your starting point, look for a set with 12 to 18 pans rather than 36 — the extra colours in bigger sets are usually near-duplicates of ones you already have. A mid-range set with good pigment saturation will outperform a huge set of chalky, poorly bound paints every time. Browse watercolour sets in a range of sizes and prices.
How much this should cost
A reasonable beginner kit — paints, two or three brushes, a pad of paper, a palette — should not need a large budget. If a "complete beginner set" is priced far above what the individual items would cost separately, you're paying for packaging, not paint.
What to do in the first month
Paint small and paint often. A stack of A5 practice sheets teaches you more than one large, precious canvas you're afraid to ruin. Mix colours before you need them in a painting, just to see what combinations you get. By the time you've gone through your first pad of paper, you'll know exactly which tool you're missing — and that's the only signal worth buying against.
Frequently asked questions
- Can I start painting with just three colours?
- Yes. Red, yellow and blue (plus white and black) mix into almost every colour you need. Many working artists still paint from a limited palette by choice.
- Is watercolour or acrylic easier for a first-timer?
- Acrylic forgives mistakes more easily — you can paint over a dry layer. Watercolour rewards a lighter touch and is harder to correct, but it's cheaper to start with and easier to clean up.
- Do I need canvas, or can I start on paper?
- Start on paper or a canvas board. Stretched canvas is for when you already know you'll finish the piece — it costs more and beginners often abandon work halfway through.