Where these charts fit in your workflow
Most of them earn their place before the first mark. When you plan a piece, the Paper Size Chart settles the sheet and the pixel count for a matching digital canvas, and the Standard Canvas Sizes Chart does the same for stretched canvas. At the art store, the Pencil Grade Chart and the Brush Size & Shape Guide turn a wall of options into a short list: five pencils, five brushes, and why each one is there.
Once you own the materials, the Watercolor Mixing Chart Builder maps what your palette can do. It previews every two-paint mix with a pigment model, then prints a labeled blank grid so you can paint the real chart, which is still the most useful thing a watercolorist can hang above the desk. The Pigment Lightfastness Lookup answers the question that comes next: will those colors survive on a sunny wall?
The Art Movement Timeline is for the other kind of planning, the kind where you look for a direction. Seeing that Ukiyo-e prints were reaching Paris while the Impressionists were exhibiting, or that the Bauhaus, Mexican Muralism and the Harlem Renaissance were all active in 1925, gives you more ideas than any single style guide.
Where to start
- New to drawing: read the pencil chart, buy a 2H, HB, 2B, 4B and 6B, and print the test sheet to learn how your set really behaves.
- Starting watercolor: choose brushes with the brush guide’s watercolor setting, then build a mixing chart from the paints you bought.
- Preparing files for print: check the paper size and its pixel dimensions at 300 DPI before you start drawing, not after.
- Stuck for ideas: open the timeline, filter by a region you know little about and pick one artist to study for a week.
A note on accuracy
Every dimension in these charts is checked against the standard that defines it: A4 is 210 × 297 mm because ISO 216 halves A0 down to it, and the pixel counts are recalculated from those millimeters. Where a value really varies, such as pencil darkness, brush widths or the color of a paint, the chart says so and shows it as an approximation. Brands differ, and a quick test on your own materials always beats any table.