About Art Toolkit
At Art Toolkit, we manufacture and curate compact and rugged tools for sketching and painting, from urban to wilderness adventures. Whether through our expedition-proven art supplies and accessories, online and in-person workshops, demos, and events, or sharing resources with our community, we strive to inspire people everywhere to create art every day.
What We Make
We provide our namesake Art Toolkits—rugged, portable, all-in-one sketching kits—and manufacture compact, configurable paint palettes. Our online and retail shops also feature a curated selection of our favorite lightweight supplies for sketching with ink and watercolor, including paints, brushes, and sketchbooks.
Our work is made possible by our small team of intrepid and enthusiastic artists, educators, and designers. We encourage a collaborative and open work environment where everyone’s voice matters. We’re grateful for our creative community near and far!
Our Story
In 2004, upon graduating from Carleton College, artist Maria Coryell-Martin embarked on a year-long Watson Fellowship to explore remote landscapes through art. This experience inspired a resolve to continue working as an expeditionary artist with a focus on polar and glacier science, and to inspire environmental awareness in audiences of all ages.
Maria’s travels have brought her face-to-face with polar bears, leopard seals, emperor penguins, and narwhals. She was inspired to create a more compact sketching and painting kit after a challenging experience juggling her sketching tools while crawling in the sand for hours to monitor walruses on a small island in eastern Greenland. Many prototypes, field-tests, and customer reviews later, the Art Toolkit and Pocket Palette have evolved into a versatile sketching and painting system for artists of all ages and skill-levels.
Before joining Art Toolkit full-time in 2019, co-founder Darin Reid spent his summers in the waters of the Salish Sea teaching sea kayaking, and designing and building websites in the colder months. After years of behind the scenes collaboration, Darin is now our Operations Director and carries his Pocket Art Toolkit everywhere he goes.