Suggestions for artistic 11 (nearly 12) year old please

[RedSkyAtNight]

DD has no clue what she wants for Christmas.
Other than "hanging out" with friends and spending too long on her phone, she does spend a lot of time sketching and doodling.

I can obviously buy her new (nice) sketch books as she goes through these at a rate of knots, but what else might she like? We are drowning in coloured pencils, but don't know if there are pens/other items that are a bit "special" she might like? Any ideas?

Spirograph!!!

And nice fine liners!!

Pyrography kit if she is sensible?

Scraperboard
Watercolour box and paper
Pastels/oil pastels and paper

Not a pyrography set! I consider myself sensible but still managed to burn a curve into one finger tip
I had to re programme the finger print thing on my phone for a while... Of course, your DD might be more sensible than me :)

There are books about Zentangle which might be of interest to her. I'm sure I had one about doodling too... "The Art of the Doodle"

Calligraphy set- there's tons of different pens out there she might love. What about a poleroid camera or if she has a phone a printer to print out photo stickers?

Copic markers. Not cheap but last a while

Canvas and paints, craft/ art/ sewing kits.

Try Hobbycraft or The Works.

What about a 3D pen?

I'm getting this for my ds12, he wants to do animation when he's older:
Wacom

I used to love painting with inks, not sure how old i was though. Another favourite of mine was a mini projector thing that made it really easy to copy nice illustrations etc onto paper, no idea if they still do them?

Also i liked getting scrapbook kits etc, hobbycraft have some really nice ones but I'm sure there is cheaper options that are still as lovely quality, you could maybe get her a Polaroid camera to go with it? Crossstitch kits were good too.

My advice would be don't get any stuff aimed at children. Get her some real acrylic paints and some decent paper. Also maybe a nice palette of water colours and a set of 'proper' brushes in lots of different sizes. Maybe you could get her one of those big tool boxes with different layers to keep all her bits in- I would've loved that. Maybe a set of oil pastels. The Works would be a good place to explore for arty presents. At that age I loved having different types of paint / pastel / crayon to experiment with.

Ooh Ponderland, inks is a great idea.

A decent set of fine liners in different colours- the stabilo ones are amazing.

Gellyroll pens, copic markers, micron fine liners, more aimed towards the adult artist as they aren't cheap items but they produce far better results. Windsor and Newton inks - perhaps just an india ink to start and dip pen for lining. a light box for tracing out sketches for inking, watercolour paints - windsor and newton again or Kuretake Gansai Tambai and a decent set of brushes and of course a nice watercolour pad.

But not ever one of those "artist" sets as they tend to be the worst art supplies really cheap and awful and its a far better idea to invest in quality supplies as this age.

Tombow Duel Tip Brush pens are amazing. Prismacolour coloured pencils are also amazing.
They will both blend which is something most pens and pencils don’t do well.

We got DD a Ugee graphics tablet which connects to her laptop. She loves it. It was £350 though!

Pastels and acrylic paints, inks, charcoals, lino printing kit - so she can try out different mediums.

I'd go for a 3d pen or something like this

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lightbox-Brightness-Adjustable-Architecture-Calligraphy/dp/B01N30SHSX/ref=sr11_sspa?ie=UTF8&qid=1510837904&sr=8-1-spons&keywords=lightbox+drawing&psc=1

A subscription to JAM

jam.com

Chameleon pens- I'm buying dd a set of the flesh tone ones (she's 14). They are quite pricey but very good apparently

A felting kit. Though I would say buy individual bits & make up a felting kit as opposed to buying a ready made kit. My creative daughter really got into felting at this age, she used it to make masks & “paintings” that she embroidered onto

Lovely ideas on here! I would also add - rather tangentially, how about a sewing machine? Dd had one a year or so back, and whilst she doesn't use it regularly, I like the idea that some of her art leanings are more practical/contruction based.

linocut kit

These are sketch crayons that are supposed to be great (and they're on special :) )

www.artsupplies.co.uk/item-conte-carres-gift-box-of-18.htm