🌿🌸🌎 Earth Week will be celebrated April 22-26, 2024. How can we choose art and journaling supplies which are better for the environment?
Let's look at our choices with the three R's in mind: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
♻️ reduce
Numerous brands have developed alternative production methods to reduce the number of virgin trees used in journals, planners, watercolor paper, etc.
all links take you to Amazon, Blick, or Etsy unless otherwise noted
- Tomoe River Paper is FSC Certified, meaning the paper is sustainably sourced. Find this paper in products made by:
- Other popular notebook and planner brands also use FSC Certified paper:
- Canson XL watercolor paper is made in the USA using FSC Certified wood pulp
- Hahnemuhle offers inkjet and watercolor paper made with alternative materials like agave, bamboo, hemp, and sugar cane:
- Hahnemuhle Agave Watercolor Paper
- Hahnemuhle Bamboo Mixed Media Paper
- Hahnemuhle Natural Fine Art Papers (for inkjet printing)
- Also consider how much packaging you're ordering; be patient and schedule your Amazon orders to arrive in one delivery with fewer boxes.
- Think about the distance your supplies must travel. Look for brands made nearest you. For example, Da Vinci watercolors are made by a small business in Southern California. They ship directly from their family-run Orange County manufacturing facility to customers within the United States. No container ships are required. If you're in Germany, consider Schmincke. Artists in Poland might like to look at watercolors from Roman Szmal. Belgian artists could purchase from Isaro.
- Don't buy materials you won't use. It's compelling to grab everything in the office supply store during planner season or back-to-school sales, but do you really need sixteen spiral notebooks just because they are ten cents each?
- Many art supplies can be found gently used or even vintage on platforms like Ebay and Etsy. Look for name-brand watercolors, creative stamps, and storage solutions. For example: instead of buying a new mixing palette, try a vintage porcelain egg platter from Etsy. How cute is this one in the shape of a chicken? Or, this one holds 24 colors.
- Seek out pens which can be reused. Fountain pens allow you to replace the liquid ink. Gel pens like the Uniball Signo RT1 offer easy-to-replace refills.
- Turn toilet paper rolls into pen holders.
- Instead of purchasing water glasses for painting, reuse items from the grocery like Yoplait Oui yogurt jars, pasta sauce jars, and jars from jams and jellies. Find bamboo lids for Yoplait jars on Amazon.
- Make your own DIY journal, mixed media, planner, and scrapbook embellishments using catalogs and magazines. Our public library offers a free exchange area for these materials. Consider asking your local bookstore, community center, library, or YMCA to do the same.
- If you have extra calendars and planners on hand, tuck them away for a future corresponding year. Here's a cheat sheet for repeating years.
- Several art supply and stationery brands proudly offer items made from recycled materials:
- Decomposition Notebooks
- Eccolo Notebooks Made From Recycled Water Bottles and Recycled Paper
- Le Vent 100% Recycled Notebooks
- Mintra Composition Books
- If you intend to sell and ship your artwork, consider environmentally friendly shipping supplies from a company like EcoEnclose. They offer free samples of their recycled packaging so you can put together the right sizes to suit your needs.
- Da Vinci watercolors are all vegan (except Ivory Black).
- Van Gogh watercolors are all vegan.
- Newer models of synthetic paintbrushes perform just as well or better than traditional styles made from sable, squirrel, wolf, etc. I highly, highly recommend the Princeton Aqua Elite Synthetic Kolinsky line. My favorite size is Long Round No. 8 as an all-purpose brush.
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