Shelle Creates

Shelle Creates Hi, I'm Shelle, and I help anxious perfectionists calm their busy minds through tiny, 10-minute creative pauses.

No talent or fancy resources needed, just 10 minutes to soothe your nervous system whilst playing with paint, leaves, twigs and flowers 🧡

10/08/2026

You don’t need fancy art supplies to make simple, mindful art. Pick one paint medium to start with- acrylic, watercolour, gouache, you kids poster paints, it all counts.

Then play with it, she’s what it does. Dip things in it, Splodge it, smoosh it.

Don’t take it too seriously. And you’ll soon find your flow 🧡

For my fav art supplies to get started, comment GUIDE


I found choosing paper hella daunting when I first started, there are so many options out there, it can be quite expens...
07/08/2026

I found choosing paper hella daunting when I first started, there are so many options out there, it can be quite expensive to try out different ones. I hope a little look at what I use makes it easier for you.

📃Here's what I use and why

🎨Daler Rowney Watercolour pad
- It's a sold watercolour paper that holds lots of water with a gentle texture. I like to slightly off white colour as it lends itself to my narure influenced art style. It's not too expensive and I rarely use whiole A4 pages. I ten to cut them in A5 or A6 minis so one pad lasts a long time.

🎨Lightwish Watercolour Journal
- The paper is thick with a slight texture that gives paint a bit of grip. It copes with everything I do to it without buckling. I really like the square format and the pages are perforated if you want to remove them to frame.

🎨Winsor & Newton Mixed Media Paper
- This is a solid paper that takes a lot of paint. it's hardy and can handle lots of layers. Less refined than watercolour paper, I use it for heavy mixed peices with collage and as a less precious paper to play with - it's cheap and there are lots of pages.

🎨Moleskine Sketchbook
- This was my first sketchbook and not technically designed for paint; it's more for pen and ink, I used it for watercolour and acrylic and just played in it. Yes, the pages buckled a bit, and I painted on every other side because of how thin the paper was. But I loved the dinky size and it was my creative, secret sanctuary that I wasn't worried about messing up. You don't need perfect paper to make art you love.

🎨Artisan papers
- Every now and then I find some interesting paper in second hand shops. I use these as unusal backgrounds and for collage. I don't knw how they are going to behave with different supplies so these are always a happy experiement and something fun and differen to play with.

I hope this helps you navigate the world of art paper. You don't need lots of different types; I started with the little Moleskine sketchbook and added different paper as time went on 🧡.

For more of my fav art supplies, comment GUIDE

art supplies, watercolour, beginner, simple art, mixed media

27/07/2026

Using weird things was a game changer for me. They did things that didn’t look like anything I’d seen before which meant comparison and judgement were super difficult.

Instead of ‘that’s looks crap, that’s nothing like it’s supposed to look’, my internal narrative became ‘ooo that’s interesting, I wonder what happens if I do this?’

Suddenly creating was playing and exploring rather than cresting a specific outcome to be judged, and getting my art supplies out - and some weird thing- was exciting!

If you’d like some weird ideas to get you playing with your art supplies, comment IDEAS 🧡

simple art, beginner art, perfectionism, creative hobby

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