Do you love art? Do you have a favorite artist and artistic style? Do you visit art museums on a regular basis? Have you ever wanted to create art yourself? Maybe you already do. Whether you’ve never held a paintbrush or every inch of your walls are adorned with a piece of your artwork, you are probably aware that art supplies are not cheap.

When you head out to your local arts and craft store and cruise the aisle full of paint tubes, paintbrushes, canvas boards, and other art supplies, you notice a trend. Just about every thing has a high price tag. You might even be shocked to see a $20 paintbrush that doesn’t look any more special than your toothbrush. Why is it so expensive?

You may have also noticed that not everything is expensive. Maybe there’s a set of paints with tiny tubes much cheaper than the rest or a pack of 10 paintbrushes for the same price of one of the others. Why are these cheaper? The short answer is because they are of lesser quality.

Deciding what quality you want to use depends on many personal factors. Are you a beginner, intermediate, or advanced artist? Do you know what you are doing or are you clueless and still looking for instruction? Do you just want to try it out or are you committed to becoming the next Picasso?

If you are a beginner and are just trying out, you might want to spring for the cheaper supplies, at first. You might find out you are a terrible artist and if this happens, you don’t want to end up stuck with a bunch of useless art supplies and in debt from what you spent. Even if you do find that you are a great artist, starting with cheaper supplies will be a good idea. This way you can have the time and capacity to practice and get to know your supplies.

You also need to know the difference between cheap lower quality supplies and just plain crap. For example, never use plastic brushes. These are the kind that you get with kid art projects that have five fat plastic black bristles. These will not stand up to anything and will really affect the quality of your work.

If you find that you love art and want to continue, you can always go back and get the more expensive, high quality supplies. Lucky for you, you don’t need to pay the inflated price of these expensive supplies from art supply stores. I live to buy discount art supplies online from MisterArt.com. They have any kind of art supply you could ever need much cheaper than in stores. Might as well save a buck or two, right?