How to Stock a Year of Art Supplies for your Art Teacher Classroom for Under $250

Have you been asked to teach a year of art, and then when you look in the supply closet, you see just some mashed up crayons?? This is the age old dilemma for art teachers, especially with students who don't always treat the supplies with the care and gentleness they deserve :)

So, what to do? Here I give you a few tips that I've used to ensure that I have great supplies for students at a budget friendly price that doesn't mean I'm constantly buying supplies out of pocket or stretching a challenging budget.

My main philosophy: Quality over Quantity

Instead of buying every medium under the sun, focus on materials that support multiple units:

• 9x12 OR 11x14 drawing paper (bulk pack) – works for drawing, watercolor, simple printmaking, collage.

• Black fine-line pens – contour, illustration, cross-hatching, portrait work.

• Watercolors in tubes that you can give out to students in very small amounts.

• Colored pencils – great for layering, blending, and mixed-media: get a Prismacolor set and also control how the students use them, but they will last awhile as long as students are careful with them.

• Glue sticks + white glue

• Scissors + basic brushes

• Sharpies, Jelly Roll Pens, Micron Pens are all amazing

• Still life objects from thrift stores

• Charcoal pencils (can be a bit messy but get great effects for students): white and black charcoal on midtone paper looks amazing.

This list can carry dozens of projects throughout the year.

Use Recycled Materials

Recycled materials can easily cover 30–40% of your yearly needs, but how to collect them without driving yourself crazy or feeling like a hoarder??

Stockpile:

• Cardboard (from Amazon boxes, grocery stores, school deliveries)

• Magazine pages and newspapers

• Paper scraps (ask paper businesses to donate leftover supply)

• Containers and jars

• Paper tubes

These work for sculpture, collage, printmaking plates, looms, stencils, and prototypes. Set up a donation bin or run a “beginning-of-year supply drive” to keep a steady flow coming in.

Design Projects that Reuse Materials in Different Ways

With a small, consistent list of supplies you can still practice:

• Line and pattern drawing

• Mixed-media portraits

• Watercolor + ink explorations

• Cardboard relief sculptures

• Observation drawing units

• Collage and printmaking with recycled papers