My Go-To Vegan Friendly Art Materials
Most people are very surprised to discover that not all art materials are vegan and cruelty free. When I first started painting in 2018 I was disappointed to find out that so many art materials are still made using animal products, and as a vegan who paints animals, I found the idea of painting animals using their body parts a little disturbing.
This list covers which animal products to look out for the next time you’re shopping for new art materials, and which ones I currently use that are vegan friendly (although it’s always worth double checking, as companies change their formulations now and then). If you’re buying in store rather than online, asking the staff if they know of any vegan friendly options is a great way to start a conversation about veganism. Hopefully one day there will be a dedicated vegan friendly section in art shops (it’d probably be too optimistic to hope that animal products will eventually be completely removed from all art materials.. but we can dream..)
Animal Hair: many paint brushes are still made using hair from squirrels, pigs, goats, horses, mink and sables. This is extremely common, despite many artists preferring to use synthetic paint brushes. My favourite animal-friendly watercolour brushes are Winsor & Newton Cotman Watercolour Synthetic Brushes and Winsor & Newton Professional Synthetic Watercolour Brushes.
I’ve also recently invested in some oil and acrylic paint, and so far these Synthetic Brushes by Pro Arte have been great for both mediums.
Beeswax: commonly found in oil pastels, coloured pencils and crayons. I currently use Faber Castell Polychromos Coloured Pencils, Faber Castell Pitt Pastel Pencils and Caran D'ache Luminance Pencils (the Caran D'ache ones are more expensive, I’ve only bought a few individual ones!)
Oxgall: this is a liquid taken from the gall bladder of cows, and is commonly used as a binding agent in watercolour paint. I use Daniel Smith Watercolours which are vegan friendly, as they use synthetic binders and animal friendly pigments. Please note however some brands may use pigments containing other animal products, so it’s best to check before buying a full set.
Animal Bone Char: many black pigments, usually called ‘bone black’ or ‘ivory black’ are made using the ashes of burned animal bones. Lamp black and carbon black are usually safe options, however it’s really easy to mix your own black paint by mixing together equal parts red, blue, and yellow paint. You can also mix opposite colours on the colour wheel to make black, like red and green, yellow and purple or blue and orange.
Other pigments to watch out for: cochineal red (or carmine red) is made by drying and crushing cochineal bugs. It’s commonly used as a food dye too. Nice.
Sepia commonly uses squid ink. Thankfully, we have evolved a bit, and most pigments no longer contain animal products (there used to be cow pee in Indian Yellow..).
A great affordable oil paint that is vegan friendly is Daler Rowney Georgian Oil Paints - all pigments are vegan with the exception of Ivory Black, Prussian Green and Cerulean Hue. Daler-Rowney System3 Acrylics are also vegan friendly, with the only exception being raw sienna.
Shellac is sometimes found in fixatives, varnishes and as binders in Indian ink pigments, which is derived from crushed bugs - the lac bug specifically. Derwent Inktense have a great range of 100% vegan friendly inks in the form of blocks and pencils, I’ve used these a lot and you can achieve a really nice watercolour effect with these. They can also be used on fabric, although I haven’t tried this yet myself.
Rabbit skin glue is commonly used as a gesso and to seal unprimed canvas or wood panels. A kinder alternative is PVA size, I haven’t used any yet but I have read that this one by Gamblin is a good vegan friendly alternative.
Gelatine is another animal product often used to size paper, mostly watercolour paper and pastel paper. Fabriano Artistico Watercolour Paper is amazing to work on, and all of their papers are vegan friendly. Another paper that I’m so relieved is vegan friendly is Clairefontaine Pastelmat - this paper allows pastel to adhere without fixative and can take lots of layers which is much needed when I’m working on pet portraits.
So whether you’re vegan, or just like to use cruelty free products, I hope I’ve saved you some time trawling through countless blogs and websites to find high quality, animal friendly art materials. The list above only covers the art materials I have personally used - there are lots more out there, but I found these to be the best in terms of affordability and quality.