Gifts for Artist Friends That Are Not Another Sketchbook

Artists get given supplies. Every birthday, every Christmas, another sketchbook, another set of pens, another tin of something. Most of us have a drawer of unopened materials and a guilty feeling about it.

The two things artists actually run short of are knowledge and other people's work on their own walls.

Guides that are not motivational filler

The Candy Decay Composition System is 14,99 euro, 43 pages on how to make a crowded, detailed image stay readable without making it quieter. It is aimed squarely at people who work loud and dense and get told to simplify. There is a long free excerpt if you want to check the tone before buying.

The Candy Decay Color System at 9,99 euro covers building a colour style rather than copying a palette.

Why Does My Art Feel Off at 7,99 euro is the diagnostic one, for the specific misery of finishing a piece and not being able to say what is wrong with it. All of them live in art guides.

Art by someone else

Artists are strangely bad at buying art. Everyone assumes they will make their own version eventually, and then nobody does.

Hand-signed 21 x 21 cm prints are 35 euro. Wall art starts at 22 euro. If the person paints digitally, something physical and slightly imperfect on their wall is a better gift than another piece of software.

For the one who never finishes anything

A small format is a kindness. My own paintings are 15 x 15 cm precisely because a fixed small square removes one decision and makes finishing possible. If your friend has six abandoned large canvases, a set of small panels plus the composition guide is a genuinely useful combination.

Free, if you are broke

The coloring pages and phone wallpapers cost nothing. Not a whole present, but a decent addition to a card.

Bundle idea

A guide plus a small signed print comes to around 50 euro and covers both halves: something to learn from and something to look at. That combination has been my most requested gift order two years running.