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Even before I became a mom, I fantasized about the day I would get to start drawing or painting with a son or daughter of my own. My parents are artists, and many of my earliest memories include sculpting with air-dry clay with my mother and watching my dad draw robots — guided, of course, by my detailed specifications. But decades later, the market for kids’ art supplies has a whole lot more to offer. So to help me (and you) pick a gift for a friend’s third-grader, prepare for a toddler’s first foray into painting, or equip a talented tween with the very best colored pencils, I asked nine experts about their favorite art supplies for kids of all ages.
The consensus among all of the artists and parents I talked to was that buying simple, high-quality materials that you can use for many different projects is the best way to keep kids engaged and get your money’s worth. “It’s so much better to invest in building blocks that will get used over and over again,” rather than a bunch of novelty items you’ll only use once, says mom of three Erin Boyle of Reading My Tea Leaves.
Their 51 recommendations include everything from washable crayons to washi tape, so I’ve organized the list below by type of material and included guidance on the best age range for each product as well.
Update on January 15, 2025: Added new products and removed products that are out of stock or discontinued; updated prices and checked stock for all other products.
Crayons and colored pencils
Crayola’s line of washable crayons and markers were among the most frequently recommended art supplies, especially if you’re shopping for younger kids. Jen Trolio, Strategist senior editor and mother of two kids who are now 6 and 9 years old, vouched for the “washable” aspect in particular: “When they say ‘washable,’ they actually mean washable,” she says, adding that the markers, crayons, and paints are good quality and pretty affordable, plus they come in a wide variety of skin-tone shades.
Another worry-free way to let kids explore with crayons is by giving them a set designed to be used in the bath. “If your kids want to draw on the walls, this is a great way to let them have fun,” says health and wellness entrepreneur Liv Lo Golding, a mom of two toddlers. She recommends these beeswax bathtub crayons because they are fragrance-free, easy to hold, and contain only food-grade ingredients, making them a perfect choice for young children who may also use them to draw on themselves.
“I’m a colored-pencil enthusiast,” says Boyle, noting that her favorites are these vibrant Stabilo Woody 3-in-1 Pencils. “You can use them like a crayon, add water to use them like a watercolor, and they even work on whiteboards,” she says. The satisfyingly soft pencils are also chubby, making them easy to hold for little kids.
This set of watercolor gel crayons from Ooly can be also be used as regular crayons or watercolors. Unlike the Stabilo crayons above, though, these simply twist up so you don’t have to sharpen them.
Boyle also recommends these Lyra colored pencils for “young elementary-school kids learning to grip pencils,” because they are easy to use, come in beautiful colors, and are extremely sturdy and long-lasting. In addition to the classic rainbow pack, she specifically mentioned this set of Skin Tone pencils for budding portrait artists.
“Nothing is more frustrating than a colored pencil that doesn’t really work, but these Prismacolor ones go on so smoothly,” says Ebel of her favorite Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. She uses them at work in the Backdrop studio for developing wallpaper collections, and her 6-year-old daughter Colette is also a fan — as is just about every artist, designer, art teacher, and creativity-inclined parent we’ve ever interviewed about art supplies. Trolio bought a set of 48 Prismacolor colored pencils for her older daughter as a Christmas present when she first got serious about drawing. In addition to the sets, you can buy some of the colors separately. I love using black Prismacolor colored pencils instead of a regular graphite pencils in my sketchbooks because they are so soft and rich in pigment.
Markers
Just about everyone I spoke to for this story, as well as plenty of parents I have talked to about gifts for kids generally, mentioned Crayola markers as an essential. They come in a huge variety of colors and have a sturdy tip that delivers richly pigmented ink.
Trolio also considers the finer-point Super Tips an important add-on for kids who are starting to draw with more detail. This set gets you 100 markers for less than $20.
“In addition to Crayola markers, I also like Mondo Llama for a little flair,” says Ebel about Target’s in-house line of arts-and-crafts supplies. She pointed to these glitter markers as a favorite because they add some oomph to any creative project. Their bullet-tip design ensures precision in application, allowing your young artist to add detailed touches to greeting cards, scrapbooks, drawings, or sketchbook pages.
Of all the markers, crayons, and colored pencils that Strategist senior editor Winnie Yang has bought for her 9-year-old daughter, the OMY markers are the tween’s favorite to use. “I can def vouch for their quality too,” she says. These markers come with two “erasers” that magically change the color of each marker when layered on top.
Strategist contributor Youngna Park included this set of Posca markers in her guide to the best gifts for tween girls. According to her young sources, the markers are waterproof, can be used on a variety of surfaces, and layer really nicely.
Paints and pastels
Tze Chun, founder of UPRISE ART, recommends looking for art supplies that kids can open and close completely by themselves. Her top recommendation, Kwik Stix, is also a Strategist favorite and was mentioned by three other parents. The paint sticks “are a staple in our house and are great for younger and older kids alike,” Chun shares. They are an ingenious solution for those who want the smooth application of paint without prolonged drying times and potential mess. Their kid-friendly design is a big plus: “Toddlers are still working on their fine motor skills, and the caps challenge them to fit the two parts together, but they don’t need a lot of strength to close them properly,” Chun explains.
Like Kwik Stix, these Ooly nontoxic paint sticks provide worry-free playtime for both toddlers and their parents. Ebel says they perform really well too, with a smooth application that looks almost like gouache, she says.
While tempera paints are great for little kids just starting out — they’re washable and quick-drying —older children with more painting experience will appreciate this more permanent and versatile set of acrylic paints. They’re still water-based and easy enough to clean up, but where tempera paints can crack and peel after a while, these adhere and layer well on a variety of surfaces from wood and ceramic to leather and stone. (They’ll also stain clothing, though, so “dress for mess.”)
Yang says that opening this high-quality watercolor palette will make older kids feel overwhelmingly rich in the same way that a megabox of Crayola crayons can do for a younger kid. Besides having an obviously wide range of colors to choose from, Yang says, the colors are saturated and can provide an opacity that’s hard to find in cheap sets for kids.
This smaller and more portable watercolor set is an excellent gift and perfect for painting quick landscapes, still lifes, or pet portraits on the go.
Paper
For everyday use, Chun recommends the affordable paper rolls and pads from Melissa & Doug. Ebel also mentioned Melissa & Doug’s big paper roll — which can be purchased on its own or with a wooden tabletop dispenser — as a kid’s art essential. I have a similar Ikea version and love how it keeps my apartment from becoming a wasteland of construction-paper piles. The Ikea paper dispenser also has a convenient trough for crayons, markers, or rubber stamps on top.
Mixed-media paper is a versatile and economical choice, says Boyle, who frequently opts for Blick All-Media Paper. This type of paper has the weight to handle wet mediums or heavy coloring without buckling, making it a practical alternative to pricier watercolor paper. Boyle also notes that her family uses loose sheets more than pad-bound paper, and adds that the thicker sheets can later be repurposed into cards, envelopes, and gift tags, giving your child’s artwork a second life.
Strathmore Drawing Pads feature heavy, acid-free paper that stands the test of time, says Chun, and their textured surface adds an extra dimension to the artwork. They are great for older children who want to take their work to the next level or for anything you plan to frame.
Though you can learn to do origami with any kind of paper, standard origami paper is already cut to the right size and designed to withstand being folding over and over. It’s also colored on one side and white on the other, which will help kids follow folding diagrams. This pack from Japanese brand Aitoh comes with 200 sheets in 100 different colors.
These Post-it Super Sticky Easel Pads are a hit with both kids and adults. “I’ve even found that the large Post-it paper — that we originally bought for work — is excellent for kids,” Ebel shares. “They’re sticky so we can hang them on the walls.”
It’s not archival quality, but both Trolio and Yang told me they always keep inexpensive printer paper on hand for their kids to pull from whenever they feel like it. Trolio likes the paper from Target’s Up&Up brand.
Kids of all ages are often drawn to tiny things, from itty-bitty stuffed animals to miniature notepads. But this set of 15 mini drawing and watercolor pads from Legion Paper is a major upgrade on the ones you can get at the drugstore or Claire’s. Each pad is slightly bigger than a credit card and contains a different paper from the brand’s professional-grade artist paper collection. I recently gave the set to a friend’s 7-year-old daughter and we both had a blast making tiny paintings together.
Clay and scultping
Sago Brothers Air Dry Clay is a top pick for sculpture-making, according to Chun. “Whereas Play-Doh is about tactile play, air-dry clay is more about bringing an idea to life,” she explains. This set comes with a range of colors and a helpful booklet that includes helpful instructions on a few of the basic skills, like rolling, pinching, and scoring.
Crayola’s white air-dry clay offers more of a blank canvas for kids who want to later paint their creations. It’s the one Trolio uses most with her kids and a good intro to ceramics as it can be thinned with water, coiled, scored, and slabbed just like any other natural clay.
Sculpey, a polymer-based clay that you bake to set, is still just as popular and satisfying to use as it was when I was a kid. This set offers 12 bright colors perfect for creating little animal or food sculptures as well as ’90s-inspired jewelry.
For a clay-esque experience with less of the commitment, Trolio suggests Wikki Stix — a fidgetlike sculpting material made from wax-coated pieces of yarn. They are reusable and tacky, so you can stick them to each other to create unique sculptures. Trolio has even been to restaurants that give them out instead of crayons for keeping kids busy at the table.
Crafting and DIY
If you use your imagination, art supplies can be found almost anywhere. Alexandra Lange, a writer and mom, suggests going to the hardware store for some multicolored duct tape or painter’s tape. Trolio also emphasizes the endless potential of tape. “Maybe the most important thing, I think, is a variety of tape,” she says. For her that includes colored masking tape, washi tape, and a roll of painter’s tape that her kids are allowed to use to hang their work on the wall. I’d add magnet tape to that list as well. The magnet is actually pretty strong and it works to hang paper, photos, postcards, and lots of other things on any magnetic surface.
“I think stickers are an excellent, mess-free way for little ones to get crafty,” says Maria Dueñas Jacobs, a mom of three (including a set of twins) and founder of the popular kids’ dress-up brand Super Smalls. Her sticker philosophy is that they should be used for everything and everywhere. “They’re no longer just for decorating homemade cards — we love to use them to gem-ify anything from bike helmets and schoolbooks to water bottles, doll furniture, and everything in between,” she says. While it’s a good idea to think about a child’s interests when buying them stickers, there are many stickers that all kids will appreciate, like googly eyes, realistic animals, and cute food.
Art sets and kits
According to Chun, these craft libraries from Kid Made Modern, which we have featured in a bunch of gift guides, have plenty of variety but are curated enough to motivate kids to use their supplies carefully. “I appreciate that all the materials in this extensive set have a great color palette as well,” says Chun, noting that some craft materials come in only primary colors. She likes that it works as a “perfect self-contained activity” and can be easily brought on a trip. Trolio is also a fan of open-ended crafting sets like this. “My kids are big on building stuff,” Trolio says, explaining that they often make costume components out of colorful pipe cleaners — for example, a pair of black cat ears, or green eyeglasses to go with an Encanto Mirabel dress.
Trolio gifted this Spirograph set to her almost 7-year-old daughter this past Christmas with the intention of giving her a way to add unique designs to her drawings, and to the cards she likes to make for friends. Skill-wise, Trolio says that at almost 7, using the gears is sometimes challenging but still doable, so the set should work for around that age and up.
Lange bought a few paint-by-numbers kits during the pandemic that were a big hit with her now-11-year-old son. “I got the ranch house, and he got the succulent array from the same company. I have his painting on my bureau because he did what the kit said and then gave it something extra,” she says.
There are plenty of nice rubber stamp sets for kids from major brands like Crayola and Melissa & Doug. But if you’re looking for something more unique, this is the set I suggest. It comes with two contrasting-color ink pads meant for layering to mimic screen-printing color overlays. This set has an underwater-animal theme and lets you combine different shapes to create a host of creatures.
Tools
The best advice I’ve received about buying paintbrushes for children is to offer a wide range of sizes and shapes (think flat versus round tips) to encourage experimentation and let kids find what works best for them. Little kids will have the most success with larger, chunkier brushes and will also enjoy applying paint with sponges, rollers, and stamplike dabbers. By the time kids are in elementary school, a set of brushes like the one below from Blick is a great investment that feels grown-up but isn’t too expensive to replace every once in a while. A good gift for watercolor enthusiasts is a set of brushes with a built-in water reservoir: Simply squeeze the handle to wet the bristles for convenient painting on the go.
For school-age kids who want to create more complex drawings or learn exactly how to draw their favorite licensed characters, a light-up tracing pad is an excellent tool. This one from Crayola comes with one graphite pencil, a set of 12 colored pencils, and paper, as well as images of dragons and other fantasy scenes to trace from.
The best scissors for kids, like the best paint brushes or markers, will depend on a child’s developmental maturity, fine motor skills, and dominant hand. Little kids will love practicing with scissors that create wavy, squiggly, or bumpy cuts. For left-handed kids like her 9-year-old, Yang recommends Lefty’s-brand scissors for their precise cutting, comfortable handles, and sharp blades. And for kids interested in sewing, I recommend this pair of student craft scissors from Fiskars that are designed to cut through fabric with ease. I have many different pairs of scissors from the brand, these included, and find that they stay sharp for years and are comfy to use.
There are few things that thrill kids more than using a hot-glue gun to cover something in gems or pom-poms or build a tiny village out of toothpicks. From around ages 9 or 10, most kids are responsible and coordinated enough to use the tool safely with parent supervision. Look for one like this from Gorilla with safety features like a wide base and fold-out stand, a long insulated nozzle, reinforced cord, on-off light, and options for low and high temperatures.
Our experts:
• Erin Boyle of Reading My Tea Leaves
• Tze Chun, founder UPRISE ART
• Natalie Ebel, co-founder of Backdrop
• Ryan Freebern, senior engineering manager, Identity & A/V
• Liv Lo Golding, health and wellness entrepreneur
• Karly Hiser, founder of Crann Organic
• Maria Dueñas Jacobs, founder of Super Smalls
• Alexandra Lange, writer and mom
• Jen Trolio, Strategist senior editor and mom of a 6-year-old and a 9-year-old
• Winnie Yang, Strategist senior editor and mom of a 1-year-old and a 9-year-old.
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