Art supplies

A bead is a small, pretty object with a hole through the middle so that many beads can be threaded together to make a chain.

Beads can be made of clay, glass, wood, shells, stone, nuts or in fact anything that looks good and might be nice strung together.

Beads are usually strung into necklaces or bracelets.

Braille is a system that blind people can use to read and write. Letters and numbers in braille are made up of raised dots that blind people can feel with their fingertips.

Canvas is a kind of heavy, plain woven fabric, usually made from cotton or linen. It is used to make sails, tents and other items that need to be made from strong fabric.

Artists like to stretch some canvas over a frame and use it to paint on. A piece of canvas prepared like this is also called a canvas, like the one in the picture.

Chalk is a soft, white rock that can be used to draw with on rough surfaces. Chalk is usually sold in small coloured sticks, for drawing on blackboards and sidewalks.

Charcoal is a soft black substance that is left after something is burnt. You can use charcoal to draw with, like in the picture. Charcoal is messy, and you have to be careful not to get black fingerprints on everything when you are working with it.

Charcoal is also used as the name for a color that is very dark grey, almost black.

Crayons are sticks of colored wax that are used for drawing with. Crayons are usually shorter than pencils and can be quite thick. Crayons are usually associated with very young children, and are often given to children as their first tool to draw with.

Crayons are brightly coloured things you can draw pictures with. They are made of wax with colour added. Unlike pencils there is no wooden coating over the crayon, just a paper label.

Drawing is a way of putting a picture you have in your head (or something you can see) onto a piece of paper, using your hands and a pen or pencil. Drawing is different to writing, as you are putting down a literal picture of what you are thinking about instead of writing the words to describe it letter-by-letter.

An eraser is a piece of soft rubber or plastic that is used to rub out mistakes you make with lead pencil.

Glue is a sticky substance that can be used to hold two or more surfaces together. There are lots of different kinds of glue, for sticking different things together. There is wood glue, plastic glue, construction adhesive, and many other special kinds of glue.