Professional grade art supplies can be rather costly. For starters, quality brushes start at around $5-10, and they don’t last forever. Heavy body paints go for around $10-15 per 2 oz tube, sometimes more. For paints, I use a lot of white, along with more than one shade of each color of the rainbow, for my multi-layered painting technique. I do not use black or brown paint, shading instead with color over color.
The material that costs the most is the canvas. Of course, canvases come in many sizes. I have broken down a convenient chart of canvas sizes and costs:
- Deep Frame Canvases (1½ inches deep)
- 12X24 – 26
- 12X36 – 30
- 15X30 – 37
- 16X20 – 27
- 16X40 – 48
- 18X24 – 30
- 20X20 – 28
- 20X24 – 38
- 24X24 – 40
- 24X30 – 50
- 24X36 – 55
- 24X48 – 60
- 30X40 – 65
- 30X48 – 75
- 36X36 – 70
- 36X48 – 80
- 48X48 – 90
- 48X60 – 100
inches – USD
and for smaller sizes:
- 4X4 – 6
- 5X5 – 8
- 5X7 – 9
- 6X6 – 10
- 8X8 – 12
- 8X10 – 13
- 9X12 – 16
- 10X10 – 15
- 10X20 – 25
- 11X14 – 23
- 12X12 – 20
- 12X16 – 24
The prices for high grade art supplies listed above are approximate, and do not include sales tax. The list is to help people not only understand the cost of materials, but also for a convenient reference of available sizes.