How To Stretch Your Art Supply Budget Without Sacrificing Quality

Art supplies can get so pricey that it feels like creativity has a cover charge. We push back on that idea and share a simple, grounded way to keep making work even when paint, canvas, and varnish costs are climbing. If you’ve ever stood in front of a wall of materials and thought, “I can’t afford this today,” this conversation is built for you. 

We start with the most overlooked money saver: taking a real inventory of what you already own. How much paint is actually left? How many usable brushes do you have? What tools are sitting in a drawer that could get you through the next few paintings? From there, we get practical about reducing waste and spending, including how a limited color palette can lower costs while improving cohesion and confidence in your mixes. Fewer tubes can still deliver a wide range of color if you mix with intention. 

We also dig into smart compromises like using cheaper canvas when you need to, then protecting your work with better paint choices and varnish when it makes sense. Finally, we talk DIY solutions for tools like scrapers and how to shop around local stores and discount retailers without getting pulled into unnecessary “upgrade” purchases. If you want affordable art supplies, budget art tips, and a clearer plan for stretching your studio dollars, listen through and take notes. 

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Transcript

Why Art Supplies Feel Unaffordable

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, can't afford art supplies today. They're getting too expensive. Key reasons and key things to look for going forward. And I'm Dave Bordanson. I'm a local Cleveland artist. I've spent 37 years in the software sales executive position, and I've been an artist for over 18 years. So I come with instant credibility and I know what I'm talking about. And this is real life words. So what should we be looking for? What are you going to learn about this? First things you should be looking for is take a look at your current supplies. Everything you have in your current supplies, take a look at that and see how much do you have? How much paint? How many tools do you have? How many brushes? Uh, what kind of varnish do you have? What's left in the collection? Oh, I have enough paint and I have enough supplies to paint several paintings. Well, then you're in pretty good shape. You can save some money. You don't need to go out and buy expensive tools. Okay. And then if you're seeing that you have maybe 20 different colors, but you don't have a range of like 50 different tubes of paint, cut down on your color concepts and cut down on your color, limit the colors. So you can do that. You could save some money and do that. And then um uh I hate to say this, but if you have to, if you absolutely have to, go out and buy cheaper canvas. If you have to do that and you can save some money there, buy a little bit cheaper canvas, use good paint if you can, because that'll protect the canvas. And then if you feel that the piece needs varnish, put some varnish on it to even protect it more. And then when it comes to tools, let's say you're limited and you only had a couple scrapers and you need a bigger scraper, uh go to all the cheap, you know, supply houses and try to DIY it, you know, try to find something uh uh that you have, you know, maybe laying around in some of your old tools that you you could use as scrapers. You know, try to cut the cost one way or another. So, you know, we've got canvas, we've got paint, we have tools, uh uh, we have varnishes, and varnishes can be very expensive. So search around the best you can and then uh find your hobby lobbies if you have those in in your town. Find those, find you know, your Walmarts, find find uh local stores that maybe you can cut the cost with. But those are the key things that you got to start thinking about. Wait a minute, I may have to limit my color schemes and my color palette, and I may have to you know shorten the color concepts down a little bit to save on paint. I may have to buy cheaper canvas, I may have to do some things that I normally wouldn't do, and I have some other tools in the house.