I am, by nature, a chronic over-packer. I have been the guy with two giant suitcases for two weeks, but that’s not who I want to stay.

I want to be the guy who’s traveled enough for that I can simply wake up and go. I want to be the plein air artist who can see something beautiful and sit down right there with out hauling kit. I want to be so confident in my own ability to be okay that I can arrive with nothing and make it work.

This sort of efficiency is born of practice and so to this end I’m pushing myself this trip to take less and be okay with it. No computer, one book, fewer clothes than I think I’ll need, my whole camping set packed into a duffle.

One place I’m allowing myself a little bit of chaff is my art kit. This is, after all, a working vacation. Treating being away on a trip as a time to absorb and expand my thinking, take notes and draw objects, has really worked for me. I want to get that kit honed down.

Here’s what I’m taking with me and what I hope to find out about it. I’ll return to this sometime on the backend and evaluate.

Notebooks

My notebooks are a place I feel really confident in my choices. The top two are the essentially the same. I only have 20 sheets left in the first and I think I might run out so the second one is backup. The black one in the bottom right is a watercolor notebook, my only new addition to this.

In Prague in February I only used two, the sketchbook in the upper left and the notebook in the lower right. I took long form notes and did game design in the lined one, and took visual notes and practice sketches in the other. I found it easy enough to hot swap between them on the fly.

Investigation: Do I end up using two art kits, one for watercolor and one for general use, or do I end up carrying three out of the four notebooks most of the time?

Small Red Bag

The small red bag is designed to be mostly carried inside my day bag but then put over my shoulder while I am at a museum or sitting around at somebodies house listening to the conversation and drawing. I want to be able to access things like a sharpener with out clawing through mess of stuff.

The usual subjects:

• My art pencil tin to protect the ones I really don’t want to snap.

• 2 erasers

• 2 lead holders

• A lead pointer

• 4 Bic paper mates (recommended for sketching by comics artist Lynda Barry)

• 2 refill packs of lead for my lead pointer.

• A pencil sharpener for my art pencils

• A glue stick

• 3 smudge sticks

I picked up using lead holders (distinct from mechanical pencils) in college when I was learning how to draft. They are draftsmen tools first and foremost, made for people who want obsessively crisp lines. But I stuck with them for two main reasons—here you can use a whole stick of graphite to its absolute end with out your pencil ever changing shape or whieght. Its thrifty but consistent. And secondly, I love how it marries the expression of a thicker pencil lead with precision of a mechanical pencil.

If you want to get into lead holders shoot me a message and I can help get you started.

The glue stick is a new addition, since Im exploring pasting things into my notebook. I wanted to include scissors as well but these have to go with me on a plane.

Investigations: Do I use the glue stick and smudge sticks? I the separation between what’s in the easy access bag and whats in the reserve blue bag make sense? Does keeping things in a smaller bag with less jostling cut down on the amount of graphite dust I have to deal with?

The Specialty Pencil Tin

This tin came from my grandmother. All the really short pencils here do too. I actually got into charcoal this year because I started using her nubby graphite pencils to sketch.

Here you can see one part of my investigation into water media.

Contents from bottom to top:

• 3 charcoal pencils from my grandmother

• 2 charcoal pencils of my own finding

• 2 soft pastel pencils in earth tones

• 2 colored graphite pencils in leaf and earth color

• 3 water soluble “wash” pencils

Investigations: Do I actually like wash mediums? Will I actually reach for colored pencils if I’m making something that predominately just in charcoal or graphite? What does drawing monocolor in pastel pencil or colored graphite feel like?

Other Writing Supplies:

This case I’m thinking of as my backup case. It has some supplies I’m interested in using sometimes, usually in combination with something I use more often, but I don’t need on my hip in a museum or park. It also has some supplies I’m interested in testing but don’t feel a hundred percent about.

I’m imagining I keep it in my day bag with the red case and pop it open standing up in the bag when I want to test its contents or need the water pens.

Contents:

• Brush Pens in five colors (to practice thinking directional, and in strokes, so Im working up to oil paint.)

• 2 water brushes for water soluble pencil washes

• 3 water proof sketching pens

• general pens for notes

• back up lead pointer

• back up erasers

• back up pencil sharpener

Investigations: Do I end up using the brush pens? If so do I feel like they are helping me learn how to think in “strokes”? Is separating the water-brushes from the wash pencils in how I pack okay or do they really need to be together? Can I manage not to loose so many pens this time?

Green Bag, the Watercolor Kit

Okay. I’m going to be so real with you guys, I’m not sure I like watercolors. Or rather I like the idea of them more than I have liked the practice of using them.

My mom and grandmother have both used them regularly, and I have ended up with a lot of watercolor ephemera over the years. I also want to work en plien air and watercolors are just so classically what you use for that. They’re portable, non toxic, and supposedly easy to use.

I’ve just never gotten something that I really like out of using them. They never quite give me the control I want, or the boldness. I have a tendency with both watercolors and oils to attack it with the same methodology I was taught for painstaking color matching and texture faking in acrylics. But just as equally using them how I am “supposed” to use them doesn’t really get good results either.

I’m taking them along this time for two reasons. Firstly, I wanted to take some sort of color medium but my fave portable color medium (oil pastels) completely melted at camp last year in the heat of the day and I’m not prepared to waste more.

Secondly, I want to see if forced to strip back to the absolute basics in what I can take and then shown visual beauty in the space between SF and Southern Oregon, I can somehow find a way to make them work for me.

Contents:

• Bamboo drying matt, foldable.

• 5 western style watercolor brushes

• 4 Japanese ink brushes

• 2 water proof pens (backup in blue case)

• Empty jar to fill with water as needed

• 1 Windsor micro palette

• 1 Japanese watercolor palette with “fall colors”.

Investigations: Are these even worth carrying? Can I find a way to work that makes me happy? Which of the brushes do I use most? Which brushes can I leave behind? Do I need to include pencils in this kit too or is them being near by enough? How can I break the rules of watercolor so my works look more like me?

I find being intentional and deliberate as I expand my arts practice very rewarding. I hope to have interesting reports on this investigation for you as I go.

If you have any questions or thoughts about intentional art supply work, I’d love to talk to you.