DrawTogether Gift Guide

WendyMac's recommendations: DT Merch, art supplies, books, and more.

Happy early holidays, DrawTogether friends!

Whether you need to do some last minute holiday shopping (me) or just love buying art stuff (also me), this dispatch is for you. I’ve pulled together a handful of my favorite art supplies, books, merch and more. All items support local business and independent bookstores. Sunday DT dispatches are usually only available to our Grown-Ups Table members, but I’m making todays available to everyone (over 20,000 of us now!) GUT members, there’s a members-only section at the bottom of this dispatch containing a GUT discount code. :)

Without further ado, let’s get to the creative consumption!

DrawTogether Gift Guide

Wear DT on Your Sleeve

DrawTogether Zip-Ups, Hoodies, and Pins, oh my!

DT HAS NEW MERCH! To celebrated DT’s spiffy new logo¹ we made limited edition sweatshirts for 2023². They are the softest, coziest Bella + Canvas sweatshirts, hand-silkscreened with vibrant colors. 100% made in California. Pullovers for kids, zip-ups for grown-ups. And we made super sweet DT club pins for your jacket, backpack or pencil bag.

We are doing the sweatshirts via pre-order, meaning you *must* order before the end of December, then they are gone! Pins will continue to be available in the new year. Everything ships early 2023. (Let’s call them an extended holiday gifts.) A portion of all proceeds go to support the DrawTogether Classrooms program, proving it is possible to look good while doing good.

GRAB SOME FOR THE CREATIVE KIDS AND GROWN-UPS IN YOUR LIFE.

GUT Members: there is a special discount code for you at the bottom of this dispatch!

For the wandering artist.

I love Case for Making Travel Brushes. Excellent quality small sized brushes, perfect for watercolor, gouache, ink and any detail work. They close up into their matte gold holders and tuck perfectly into a pocket so you can safely take them everywhere.

This pencil helps you draw better. Or at least feel better while drawing.

By now you all know my affinity for Blackwing’s and Sister Corita and the Corita Art Center, so when they partnered up to create Blackwing Pencils: Sister Corita edition… I mean, what could be better. A portion of the proceeds goes to support the Corita Art Center in LA.

Paint water vs coffee

I love these gorgeous cups/paintwater holders from ceramicist Lalese Stamp at Lolly Lolly Ceramics. And I bet there is a local ceramicist in your area who is making special vessels for your art-uses, too. You can never have too many paint water cups. And this one you will never mistake for your coffee.

Watercolor field set for grown-ups

This is the field set I personally give as a gift to people looking to do some drawing out in the world. It’s tiny, has every color you need, a great little travel brush and is a great starter kit you can use in your studio, too. Available to order from our friends at ARCH Art Supplies in SF.

Quality, fun watercolors for kids

I get this question a lot: “what is a good starter set of watercolor paints for kids?” Here’s a great place for everyone to start: The Koh-i-noor Watercolor Wheel, also available from ARCH. They come stacked and you twist them apart, which is super smart and fun, the colors are great and a kids can pick up enough pigment that it’s satisfying. (Nothing is worse than crappy watercolors with barely any pigment!)

Books by/about DT Visiting and Featured Artists

Over the past year, the DrawTogether podcast and the GUT have spotlighted so many inspiring artists past and present. If you enjoyed learning about them on the pod one the GUT, keep it going! Here are wonderful books by or about each of them:

Maira Kalman: Women Holding Things, Bisa Butler: Portraits , Ross Gay: Inciting Joy and Book of Delights, Yuyi Morales: Dreamers (children’s book), Carson Ellis: What is Love (children’s book, words by Mac Barnett), Tucker Nichols: Crabtree (children’s book, words by Jon Nichols), LoveIs Wise // Alma Thomas: Ablaze with Color (children’s book, words by Jeanne Walker Harvey), Ruth Asawa: A Life Made by Hand (children’s book, pictures and words by Andrea D'Aquino, Diego Rivera: His World and Ours (children’s book, words and pictures by Duncan Tonatiuh)

Learn to make INK from ANYTHING.

This book MAKE INK, A Forager’s Guide to Natural Inkmaking is not your basic DIY guide to ink making in your kitchen. No. What Ink maker Jason Logan of Toronto Ink Company accomplishes with this book is a deep dive into the natural world and color, and how we humans can play “color artist-scientists” and mess around in it. We can make ink out of *anything*. Jason also has a book on ink making for kids coming out soon, so Grown-Ups start with this one and get ready for the kids to join in soon. Bonus: here’s something special to use with the ink you make: these dip pens are similar to the ones Ben Shahn used for his calligraphy work. He also used sticks, just FYI. Different strokes for the same folks.

Gift Membership to the GUT

I hear from so many of you how much you’re enjoying the DT Grown-Ups Table community. Why not grab a seat for someone else? Give a creative friend a GUT subscription and every week they’ll get a new lesson, exploration and assignment, plus they get to participate in the group art shares and shows and discussions. We have a really special community going.

Bonus: DrawTogether and DT GUT is 100% members supported. (DT is the PBS of drawing!) Buy some merch, gift a friend a seat at the GUT - or grab one yourself - and get the good feeling of knowing you’re helping all this continue.

YOUR TURN. What is in YOUR Gift Guide?

I’ve started a chat for GUT members to share our art supply gift rec’s for grown-ups. If anyone wants to share their recommendations for KIDS, let’s get a list going in the comments below! What’s a fun kids art supply, tool or project/kit for kids your little ones love and you recommend?

Have a wonderful holiday everyone.

DT GUT Members your discount code is below - new drawing assignment to come next week!

xoxo

w