The Best Art Supplies for Kids

Photo: Liza Corsillo

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 out the best art supplies for kids of all ages, I asked artists and in-the-know parents about their favorite crayons, colored pencils, watercolor paints, and much much more.

The consensus among everyone 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. That said, a few also recommended kits that would make great gifts and help guide kids through a project from start to finish.

The 70+ products below 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.

Updated on January 15, 2026 
I added several new product recommendations and confirmed that all of our previous picks are still available and all prices are up to date.

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When I talked to teachers and parents about art supplies for kids, Crayola’s line of washable crayons and markers (more on those below) was very often the first recommendation, especially if you’re shopping for younger kids.

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Jen Trolio, Strategist senior editor and mother of two kids who are now 7 and 10 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.

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Before kids are ready to use conventional crayons, child-development experts suggest getting them a chunkier set designed for little hands. The most popular option, and my son’s favorites, are Crayola’s egg-shaped palm-grip crayons. Because they’re basically unbreakable and don’t require a ton of pressure, they help toddlers gain coloring confidence and develop a love for drawing.

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Or, for kids over age 3 who don’t put things in their mouth anymore, a box of crayon rocks makes a great gift.

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Ooly’s double-sided twist-up crayons are super-fun to use because their texture is creamy and easy to mix, even on dry paper.

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Omy’s gel crayons are water soluble and a favorite among older kids who love to use them like water colors.

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Just about every artist, designer, art teacher, and creativity-inclined parent we’ve ever interviewed about art supplies recommends Prismacolor Premier colored pencils. Backdrop co-founder Natalie Ebel loves using them at work because of how smoothly they write. Her daughter, who first got a set when she was 6, is also a big fan.

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You can buy some colors separately, which is helpful for kids with strong color preferences. I love using black or navy Prismacolor pencils instead of a regular graphite pencil in my sketchbooks because they’re so soft and rich in pigment.

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Boyle introduced me to the Stabilo Woody 3-in-1 pencils she says can be used like a crayon, like watercolors, or even on whiteboards. The satisfyingly soft pencils are chubby, making them easy for little kids to hold.

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Boyle also recommends Lyra colored pencils for “young elementary-school kids learning to grip pencils.” They are easy to use, come in beautiful colors, and are extremely sturdy and long-lasting. In addition to the classic rainbow pack, Lyra makes these neon colors and a set of multiple skin tones for budding portrait artists.

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Just about everyone I spoke to for this story mentioned Crayola markers. They come in a huge variety of colors and have a sturdy tip that delivers richly pigmented ink.

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Crayola’s Pip Squeaks markers are shorter and better sized for smaller hands.

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Trolio also considers the finer-point Super Tips an important add-on for kids who are starting to draw with more detail.

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For another fun add-on, consider Crayola Colourwhirls. The plastic drawing tools are basically spinning tops that can be loaded with markers to create all sorts of spiral designs as they move across paper. They’re compatible with standard-size Crayola markers and come with a long notched tab that, when pulled back like the starter on a lawn mower, sets them off at incredible speed. Kids can even set two Colourwhirls tops spinning at the same time in a kind of battle to see which goes on drawing the longest.

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“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 a set of vibrant glitter markers as a favorite because they add some oomph to any creative project.

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Omy markers are a favorite of Strategist senior editor Winnie Yang’s 10-year-old daughter. These come with two “erasers” that magically change the color of each marker when layered on top.

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Like Omy, Posca is a popular brand with artsy tweens. These paint markers are featured in our guide to the best gifts for tween girls.

However, when I spoke to my sister-in-law, Angela Silva, a mom and graphic designer living in Los Angeles, she recommended a set of paint markers she found on Amazon that are less expensive and easier than Posca paint markers for littler kids to use. Ooly’s paint markers are also well loved and come is a smaller pack, making them less of a commitment for kids just getting started. Trolio’s kids enjoy using Sharpie Creative markers, which have the same effect as paint markers and work well on all sorts of surfaces.

Tempera paint is what you will find in most preschool and elementary classrooms because it’s easy for little kids to use, dries quickly, and cleans up well. It even washes out of clothing. You can buy liquid tempera paint, but it also comes in paint sticks and solid discs called tempera cakes.

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Tze Chun, founder of Uprise Art, recommends Kwik Stix, a popular brand of tempera paint sticks that was also mentioned by five other artists and parents I spoke to. She says they’re an ingenious solution for anyone who wants the smooth application of paint without the prolonged drying times and potential mess. The 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.” Ooly’s tempera-paint sticks were also recommended several times. Tempera cakes look like oversize watercolors but are more opaque and dry more quickly.

Actual watercolors, meanwhile, are more transparent and a bit messier to use. But they also allow for more subtle color mixing and layering.

Yang says this high-quality watercolor palette from Kuretake delivers a similar thrill to what younger kids experience when opening a megabox of crayons. Plus the colors are saturated and provide an opacity that’s hard to find in cheap sets for kids. Kuretake also makes smaller, less expensive sets of watercolors, including this gem-tones set Silva recommended to me. And this smaller, more portable watercolor set from Winsor & Newton is an excellent gift that’s perfect for painting quick landscapes, still lifes, or pet portraits on the go.

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Elementary-school children are typically mature and coordinated enough to use acrylics. These paints are still water based and easy 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 definitely stain clothing, though, so “dress for mess.”)

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Dave Ercolini, children’s-book illustrator and arts educator, has been working with his third-, fourth-, and fifth-grade students on printmaking projects recently and loves using Speedball water-soluble inks. They have a satin finish when dry and clean up easily with soap and water. Speedball also makes a few different starter kits, like this linocut one, for beginner printmaking. (Tools included in some of the kits can be sharp, so it’s best to get started with an adult present.)

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 also 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 media 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. And while it’s not archival quality, 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.

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Ercolini recommends Canson XL 98-pound mixed-media paper for beginners because it’s “big and strong.” He says it’s suitable for graphite, charcoal, pastels, and watercolors. 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. 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 to 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 artists paper collection. I recently gave the set to a friend’s 7-year-old daughter, and we had a blast making tiny paintings together.

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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.

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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.”

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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.

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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 natural clay.

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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.

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For a clay-esque experience with less of a 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.

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, gems, and funky letters.

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Nostalgia and a need for toddler-friendly Christmas-card-decorating supplies led me to this set of colorful Crayola glitter-glue pens. I wasn’t sure what to expect, as the last time I’d used them was several decades ago, but I have been very impressed. They go on kind of like puffy paint but dry down more flat while holding their vibrancy, and they sparkle really well. They also stick just as well to everyday objects like phone cases and rocks as they do to paper, cardboard, and air-dry-clay sculptures.

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According to Chun, these craft libraries from Kid Made Modern have plenty of variety but are curated enough to motivate kids to use their supplies carefully. “I appreciate that all the materials 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 easily be 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.

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My current favorite art kit for kids is this DIY picture-frame set from Super Smalls. In the box, you’ll find three blank frames to decorate: a heart, a rectangle, and an oval. Kids can use the included puffy paint on its own or to cover the frames with rainbow gems. You also get a bunch of paper that’s pre-sized for each frame, so you can fill them with your own drawings.

There are plenty of nice rubber-stamp sets for kids from major brands like Crayola and Melissa & Doug. I love this basic alphabet set, for example. But if you’re looking for something unique, you could pick up one of these two-tone ocean– and bug-themed stamp sets. They each come with two contrasting-color ink pads meant for layering to mimic screen-printing color overlays. The stamps include a variety of animal and insect parts that let you combine shapes to create different creatures.

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Trolio gifted this Spirograph set to her younger daughter last 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 age 6, using the gears was sometimes challenging but still doable, so the set should work for around age 6 and up.

Paint-by-numbers are a classic activity that helps beginners learn how to use a color to convey depth, light, and shadow. You can find sets for kids and adults of all ages and skill levels. Ravensburger, well known for puzzles and board games, makes a kid-friendly range that is pretty affordable and rated by age. There are also lots of sets for sale on Amazon and at big-box stores. If you’d like to shop smaller, Lange recommends the ones she bought from Pop Shop America a few years ago as an activity to do with her then-tween son.

Here are some other arts activities in book form. Strategist contributor Youngna Park’s daughter Ada received a book of Very Hungry Caterpillar place mats for her 3rd birthday. Park says they combine food, art, and creating a giant mess — a.k.a. toddler heaven. For children over 6 years old, Park recommends Majo Ideas activity books; each volume is comes packed with activities inspired by famous artists with materials like blank postcards, graph paper, stickers, and colorable posters. And for kids who dream of the day when they can accurately draw a horse or a tree frog, I like eeBoo’s pleasantly simple Learn to Draw Animals book.

The best advice I’ve received about buying paintbrushes for children is to offer them 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.

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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 10-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 and feature a soft grip and a glitter handle. I have many different pairs of scissors from Fiskars, these included, and find that they stay sharp for years and are comfy to use.

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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. Once they reach age 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.

All artists, kids included, appreciate having a dedicated place to store and display their paintings, drawings, and collages. These three tools make storing and protecting two-dimensional artwork easy and fun. I love zipper pouches for organizing finished art and supplies like felt, stickers, and other relatively flat crafting stuff. Each of these 10 pouches measures 15 by 11 inches but they come in lots of other sizes too. Or, if you want to store and flip through your works on paper, a portfolio binder with plastic sleeves is a great way to go. And if you are looking for a way to easily hang paintings and store your archive at the same time, this clever frame is a must have.

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