Art Supply Haul 2020 | Online Artist & Craftsman Supply Haul Unboxing

Hi! My name is Sophia Mitropoulos, I am an artist and illustrator and I live in Queens, New York City. I've been making work that's really specific to a niche within the fitness world and I think that's where a lot of people have become familiarized with my work, but I actually create so much more work than that, so I wanted to start to share more of that. One of my biggest projects to date is called Snatch Magazine. I also just recently started a project called Artists of Queens which is a feature page for local artists in Queens, New York because I feel like Brooklyn gets all the hype and Queens artists deserve more love. If you want to follow me on Instagram, my instagram is @lilmitrop.

Unbox this art supply haul that I ordered online from Artist and Craftsman Supply with me and watch me do a little Posca pen marker drawing! I ordered a bunch of art supplies online including Amsterdam acrylic paint, Posca paint markers, a large Canson Mixed Media sketchbook, and a bunch of cans of Montana Gold spray paint in a pre-selected palette. The acrylic paint was mostly so that I could restock my supply, the Posca markers were filling out my collection of colors in the PC-5 Size Marker, the sketchbook is so I can start working a little ~bigger~ and the spray paint is for a stencil project to come in the future.

Artist & Craftsman Supply, Long Island City, Queens

I stumbled into Artist and Craftsman Supply on Queens Boulevard it for the first time by accident. I passed their store and I went in and I was totally blown away, they have an amazing selection. I found out that it's an employee-owned company and they have every kind of art supply you could ever imagine, whether you need it or not. It was really kind of an incredible place and I really wanted to go back and buy some art supplies but due to COVID-19 temporary closures I couldn't, obviously, so I placed an order on the website because I figured it's better to try to support small businesses at this point and employee owned businesses. This is all about my online order!

Acrylic Paint

I did want to get more of a artist quality acrylic paint rather than a craft quality acrylic paint, so the first thing I wanted to get from this Artist and Craftsman Supply order was these acrylic paints. These were about $8 a piece I think, which is pretty cheap considering. I actually didn't think they were gonna be this big, they are 8.5 ounces each. So this is titanium white, and this is oxide black. Just standard. I do I use acrylic paint occasionally but I actually don't use it that often so I didn't want to spend a whole lot of money getting a bunch of different colors, so I got the bare minimum which is the primary colors so I got primary cyan, primary magenta and primary yellow. Between all of them I should be able to get done what I need to get done. And just keep it kind of simple anyway.

Posca Markers

The next thing I got was a bunch of Posca markers. I got a range of a few cool tones and some warm tones. The colors I chose were mainly just to fill out the collection that I have. I needed some more natural tones, which I feel like I still could use some more of. I have this PC-5M marker in a bunch of different colors since I’ve previously purchased their multi pack, but these are all the colors that are missing from the multi pack. I didn't buy any of the metallic ones because personally I don't use metallics that often and if I do, I have metallic markers already so I didn't feel like I needed more. These do all have a bullet tip.

I personally really love these markers, they dry matte and flat and if you've never used them I highly recommend you get a pair or a set. They're beautiful beautiful markers. They come in other sized tips and I do use other tips as well. I probably use a black fine tip one the most out of the little ones but they just don't put down as much coverage. They do make thicker tipped ones, but I can just never afford it so I feel like the medium tip it's the right size it's big enough to do a lot of coverage and small enough to do some detail work, so perfect for my style. Some of their colors are limited to the marker size, so I would consider getting another sized marker as a way to get more natural tones in my selection.

Sketchbook

The other thing I got is this gigantic sketchbook it's 11"x 14". I have this sketchbook the two smaller sizes actually. This is my current sketchbook, I started in August it's now May, so I'm almost done with it and I will actually do a sketchbook tour on YouTube when I'm done with it, but definitely not until then. There's plenty of ugly things in this sketchbook and that's how every sketchbook should be in my opinion. I think they don't need to be beautiful at all. I bought this because I just wanted a bigger workspace I definitely wanted to work a little bit bigger than the 7" x 10" that I was working with before and right before quarantine started I actually bought a smaller version of this to travel with but obviously I'm not traveling, so I'm just gonna hang onto that until it's time to travel because a big sketchbook- is just- it's impractical to travel with.

Spray Paint

The next thing I got is a bunch of cans of spray paint. This is actually for a specific project, a specific stencil project that I want to start working on. These are all Montana Gold because I'm a sucker for brand names. I don't actually know that much about spray paint so don't come at me in the comments. So for the spray paint I also bought a couple of caps. To be honest, I know they do different things but I'm not sure what. I just kind of guessed. I did some googling before I bought them. So I got a pink cap,I got a gray cap, and I got a calligraphy cap. Am I gonna use them differently? I have no idea but why not? They were a couple of cents each, so I figured may as well.

The Drawings!

So those are all the things that I bought from Artist and Craftsman Supply, I'm really excited I can't wait to use a lot of them. I think today I'm gonna do some drawings with the Posca markers in my big notebook and I'm gonna try to work a little bigger. I usually work at my desk but my desk is I'm very small and I'll do a sketch book tour and probably a desk tour at some point, like a workspace tour. I have some footage from my previous workspaces that I really want to share because they used to be a lot better than they are right now.

This is what it turned out looking like. It's definitely just a goofy sketchbook page for sure, but it was interesting. I made some mistakes that I don't like but I don't know, I just was kind of playing around and I just want to play around the markers. I actually ended up doing a lot more blending than I thought you can do, but it turns out if the medium is really wet you can actually blend it a little bit. Anyway, I'm happy with how it came out.

Watch this online art supplies haul on YouTube below!