travelling with supplies
What to take with you…?
I must be honest, I’ve never been one to travel light. When the kids were small and we used to do our annual trip to England across the North Sea, we always packed our Volvo estate car to the gills so I could take with me every single thing I “needed” for the 3 week holiday (much of which was never used!). It wasn’t until I began flying and having to decant my cosmetic products into small 100 ml bottles that I realized that I really didn’t need copious amounts of everything to survive a trip.
Another thing I discovered was that in the old days (on the boat trips across the North Sea in the Volvo), if I had art supplies with me, I only used a fraction of them, but if I didn’t bother taking any with me, I was drawn to every art shop in every town we visited like a moth to a flame, buying up stuff I knew I had a home but needed NOW!
So in the last few years I have used an artists’ bag made by Derwent, which has binder clips with removable sections where I put my pencils, pens, brushes, water-brushes and crayons, all held fast with strong elastic loops. There are three removable “pages”, which I can swap around as I like. If one day I only want graphite and black fineliners, I can leave the other two sections in the hotel room. At the back there’s a net zipper pouch where I keep a pencil sharpener, a pair of scissors, a collapsible water pot and small 100 ml bottles of white gesso, clear gesso, matte medium, a glue stick, and gold paint. At the front there’s a wide elastic band behind which I keep a small journal, a plastic zip bag containing bits of gelli-printed paper, newspaper, book paper, etc.
Ok, so sometimes it’s as fat as a football, but the zipper is sturdy and I always seem to be able to zip it up! Last year I took some GOLDEN OPEN acrylics with me too, also decanted into a clever little plastic pot set which took no room at all, a small gel plate and a small roller. I cut some Styrofoam sheets into small squares so I cut draw on them with a ballpoint pen to make stamps inspired by the different cities we visited in Germany.
I’ve also discovered that the amount of times I actually sit and paint en plein air – is very limited, instead I prefer to take masses of photos, and to sit in the luxury of an air conditioned hotel room in the evening and paint from the photos which are now synced to my iPad. It’s only occasionally when I’m in a park with a comfortable bench that I can sit for a while and really get into it.
What used to be a nightmare of having to choose what to take and what to leave at home in the fear I’d have left something vital behind, has turned into a kind of sport to see how small containers I can find to take the minute amounts I actual end up using! And even if I could whittle it all down even more… what’s the fun in that? :) /jacqui
