Traveling Light with Watercolor Paints and Art Supplies
On a recent vacation, I prepped a small parcel of lightweight traveling art supplies. I wanted the option to paint watercolors on the plane while enroute, and in the evenings at the hotel.
I finished one watercolor, and started two more during our week away, and it was *glorious* to enjoy sipping a beverage, and listening to an audiobook while painting watercolors at the end of perfect vacation days.
In case you’d like to pack light for travel, and make a nimble watercolor painting kit, here is what I packed;
My Supply List for Traveling Light with Watercolors
- • a 13 x 10 inch sheet of gator board/foam core to use as a support under my paper (you can get a few sheets in a variety of sizes)
- • a roll of masking tape to hold watercolor paper to the foam core
- • a shallow rinse cup (I use the frosting cap from a cylinder of pastry dough)
- • a lightweight, rubber sealed watercolor palette with 18 color wells and plenty of mixing space (like this one)
- • travel paint brushes, mechanical pencils, erasers, and a 6 inch ruler in a zippered pouch
- • one full sheet of Arches 300lb watercolor paper torn down to 6 papers measuring 7.5×11 each (Here is a tutorial for tearing down fine art papers to smaller sizes.)
- • folded paper towels for blotting
- • a stack of reference photos printed from my computer so I could fold them into a grid to help draw the shapes onto my watercolor paper (the Grid Drawing Method)
Our Tuxedo Cat Spooned – in Watercolors – and the Grid Method
I capture random images of my house, friends and family with my cell phone to use as painting and printmaking fodder. The reference photo for this little watercolor was printed at home on regular copy paper, and folded twice in vertical and horizontal axis to create a grid.
I used the squares in the folds on the printout of the photo to help place the figure, bedding and the cat on my watercolor paper.
With a water-soluble drawing pencil (like these) and a ruler, I grid the watercolor paper (see the tutorial link to the Grid Method in the supply list above), which helps me match the shapes in each square of my reference photo before beginning watercolor washes over the drawing.
The pencil lines dissolve as I apply each layer of wet washes over the paper.
Traveling with Art Supplies
If you’re going to be on a long flight, taking art supplies is an excellent way to fill the hours on a plane. You can keep the set up simple by working on your drawing for a watercolor. No need for paint or rinse water till you get to your destination. Pack a mounted sheet of watercolor on foam core, a pencil, and eraser, a small ruler and your reference photo.
Block the distraction and noise of the plane with over-the-ear noise canceling headphones that connect to your phone. You can listen to podcasts or an audiobook (I enjoyed this funny, witty-dialogue, regency romance – the story and narration were wonderful) while you work. The time will slip by in your magic carpet cocoon of creativity.
The next two watercolors I worked on while we traveled are close to finished, so I’ll post them soon. In the meantime, I hope you’re making things, and feeling forward momentum in your creative adventuring.
Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you in the next post –
Belinda
P.S. The title of the watercolor is Clove Hitch. What is a clove hitch, you ask? It’s a very nice knot, and the shape of the figure and the cat spooning reminded me of its shape (like this).
Art Quote
It was the kind of pure, undiffused light that can only come from a really hot blue sky, the kind that makes even a concrete highway painful to behold and turns every distant reflective surface into a little glint of flame. Do you know how sometimes on very fine days the sun will shine with a particular intensity that makes the most mundane objects in the landscape glow with an unusual radiance, so that buildings and structures you normally pass without a glance suddenly become arresting, even beautiful? ~ Bill Bryson
