Build Your Own Coloring Kit: A Complete Beginner's Guide
Walk down the art supply aisle looking to start coloring and it's easy to feel like you need forty products before you can begin. You don't. A good coloring kit builds up in layers — a few essentials to start, then a handful of extras once you know what you actually reach for. Here's how we'd build one from scratch.
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1. Something to Color On
This is the one part of the kit that costs nothing to start. A printable coloring book gives you a set of pages built around one theme, sized for A4 or US Letter, ready whenever you are — no shipping wait, no half-used book taking up shelf space. If you'd rather try before you commit to anything, grab one of our free pages first.
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2. A Starter Set of Colored Pencils
Colored pencils are the most forgiving tool to learn on — easy to layer, easy to correct, and they won't bleed through the page. Look for a soft core (it blends more smoothly than a cheap hard-cored pencil) and don't feel like you need the biggest set on the shelf; a mid-size range gets you further than you'd think.
Prismacolor Scholar Colored Pencils, 48 Count
Best overall starter setA well-balanced assorted range built for sketching, drawing and coloring alike — a dependable, no-fuss starting point if you're not sure yet how deep you'll get into shading and layering.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)KALOUR 72 Count Colored Pencils
Best budget large-range setSoft cores built specifically for blending and shading, in a wide 72-color range, at a price aimed squarely at adults and beginners rather than professional artists.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)Faber-Castell Goldfaber Classpack, 144 Pencils in 12 Colors
Best for family or group coloringWood-cased Goldfaber pencils in bulk — 144 pencils across 12 core colors, so everyone at the table can have their own instead of sharing one set. Built for a family coloring evening or a classroom, not for hunting down obscure shades.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)Read: 7 Best Colored Pencils for Adult Coloring →
3. A Set of Markers for Bold, Even Fills
Markers cover ground faster than pencils and give you flat, saturated color without the layering work. Alcohol-based sets blend more smoothly into each other but bleed through thin paper, so keep a spare sheet behind your page. Dual-tip sets (a broad end plus a fine end) cover both big fills and small detail with one pen.
AnyMark Alcohol Markers, 100+1 Colors
Best overall valueA huge dual brush-and-chisel-tip range, so you rarely reach for a color you don't have. Alcohol-based and comes with its own case, which matters once you own more than a dozen pens.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)Ohuhu Watercolor Markers
Best gentler, water-based pickWater-based rather than alcohol, so it bleeds through paper far less and is gentler for coloring alongside kids. A good pick if you'd rather not deal with alcohol-marker fumes or bleed-through at all.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)Shuttle Art 61 Colors Alcohol Markers
Best all-round starter set60 dual-tip alcohol markers plus a colorless blender pen, in a portable case — a solid middle-ground range built for illustration and adult coloring alike if 100+ colors feels like overkill.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)Read: Colored Pencils vs Markers — Which Should You Use? →
4. A Sharpener That Won't Snap Your Tips
A cheap handheld sharpener is the fastest way to lose a soft pencil core to snapping and crumbling. A sharpener built for artist pencils, with more than one hole size, shaves more gently and wastes less of the pencil, which matters once you're using it daily.
Faber-Castell Grip Trio Pencil Sharpener
Best for mixed pencil sizesThree sharpening holes sized for different pencil diameters in one ergonomic sharpener, so it handles standard pencils and oversized ones without switching tools.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)5. Blending Tools for Smoother Shading
Once you're comfortable with basic fills, a couple of inexpensive tools let you soften pencil edges and mix colors right on the page instead of relying on layering alone.
Brusarth Colorless Blender & Burnisher Pencils
Best for blending & burnishingColorless pencils used over your colored layers to blend and soften edges, or burnish a shape to a smoother, richer finish — a small addition that noticeably levels up finished pieces.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)KALOUR 18-Piece Professional Sketch Pencil Set
Best for sketching your own outlinesA broader sketching bundle — graphite pencils from 5H to 14B, a vinyl eraser, a kneaded eraser, a sharpener, and a paper blending stump — worth grabbing if you want to sketch outlines by hand before coloring them in.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)6. Something to Keep It All Organized
A kit only stays a kit if it's easy to grab in one go, so it's worth having somewhere to keep everything sorted.
Wigojoy Large Double-Layer Marker Organizer
Best for a growing marker collectionA double-layer case with removable dividers built for 200–300 markers, so a growing marker collection stays sorted by color instead of rolling around loose in a drawer.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)Citylife 17QT Clear Craft Organizer with Removable Tray
Best for storing the whole kit in one binA clear, stackable storage box with a removable tray — roomy enough for pencils, markers, paper and everything else in your kit in one bin instead of several small cases.
Check price on Amazon →(paid link)Building Your Kit on a Budget
- ♥Start with pencils only — markers are a nice second purchase, not a required first one
- ♥Buy a mid-size pencil set rather than the biggest one; you can always add colors later
- ♥Skip the fancy sketchbook at first — printable pages work fine and cost nothing to try
- ♥Look for a marker set that already bundles a colorless blender pen, rather than buying one separately
- ♥A cheap storage case is still better than none — organization saves more frustration than any single tool
Bring Your Kit to Life
Once your kit is together, our printable coloring books give you a steady supply of pages to break it in on — from quick, simple fills to cozier scenes with room for detail and shading.
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Explore our printable coloring books, filled with cozy moments and a touch of magic.
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