Every visual artist needs to learn to sketch, get 2 pencils, 2H and 4B would be my go-to. Standard 80mg copy paper is somewhat lacking, not exactly bad but I don't like it, even then you don't need a professional sketchbook, notebooks are pretty good, actually. If you get into paints, don't repeat my mistake, watercolors are the least forgiving medium Ive tried. Crayons are fine, chalk I have no experience on, you could consider pastels

Just an aside, but fellas comes from fellows which comes from the old English feolaga which means "one who lays down money in a joint enterprise" making it gender neutral despite contemporary usage.

Perhaps try pastels?

you know what's fun and an easy way to learn painting? water colour pencil crayons (or whatever they're called where you are) they're great! basically they're just like regular pencil crayons except you dip them in water and BOOM you're painting!

I was always horrible with brushes. I could just never figure them out or get the brush to do what I wanted. I had no clue about which brushes to use or whatever but I really wanted to paint so I got frustrated. then I found these water colour pencil crayons and suddenly I could paint. once I practiced and figured out how to paint and I tried brushes again and I was able to figure it out much quicker.

Take pictures on your phone is cheap. Lots to learn about framing, color composition, etc. As long as your phone camera has manual controls

Conte a Paris is a kind of crayon. Clay and pigment.

They come as sticks or pencil and they’re great!

You can be expressive and stylised:

https://64.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lmw3jxH8PD1qlx5jco1_r1_1280.jpg

Or incredibly delicate:

https://kaywitt.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/painting-portraits-with-sanguine-conte-pencil-pic08.jpg

They don’t erase as well as pure graphite or charcoal, but as you begin your journey that’s actually good; you want to learn to make marks very intentionally.

Thanks everyone that chimed in on this, got some options to look into

Just in case you've ruled it out because of cost, you can get into digital drawing cheaply too, if you have a computer or laptop. You can pick up Wacom drawing tablets for less than £40 in the UK and install something like Krita on Windows and Linux for free.

That's about all the help I can give though, I'm particularly bad at it, even worse than with paper and a pencil 😅

Are you talking about pastels? Cray-pas are a fairly reliable brand. Think crayons but a little softer.

But there's nothing wrong with chalk or crayons tbh. Both are very forgiving in terms of learning curve. You can use both or either at all levels of experience and training to create stuff that can pass muster.

Chalk, however, can be messy and often needs a fixative if you want to keep the end result, so it's a little more hassle than picking up a box of generic crayons.

As someone else already said, just regular pencils work. There's a reason that pretty much every form of artist learns to sketch at some point. It's a fundamental skill in the process of most "genres", even outside of painting or other 2d art forms. It's also fun and relaxing once you get the basics under your belt (like shading and blending). You don't need special stuff either. You can get going with a #2 from anywhere and a used envelope.

Seriously, look at what they use in elementary schools. Crayons, tempera, finger paints and chonky pencils. Low cost, easy to use, easy to clean up, and still capable of more complex work if you want. Any of those will get you rolling

Have you considered origami?
You can start very cheaply with scrap paper and free diagrams from internet.

To some it might not seem very creative if you don't design your own models but I like to compare it to music, not all musicians are composers, most are interpreters and some add their own twist to adapt it to their style.
The best example for this is Fumiaki's Yoda, search images of it, you'll see how each picture is unique in its own way.

Whittling. Get a decent knife and go for a walk in the forest for some starter material.

It's pre-paper!

You could try acrylic markers, they have a feel like markers, but are also similar to painting with a brush, depending on the kind your get. The only issue would be in texture and color picking, because the palette is limited no matter how many of them you buy, which can be turned into an opportunity to develop creativity, but do it at your own accord. The reason why I'm suggesting them is because they're easier to use immediately and getting yourself used to drawing/painting on regular basis, plus experimenting with colors and learning to abandon the fear of making mistakes. Also, sorry, I just realized you want something like crayons, in that case pastels are way to go for sure, but just know that you have plenty plentyyyy of mediums and tools to try, don't limit yourself to just one kind! ;p

Edit: accidentally typed "kicking" instead of "picking"