I spend more time planning my painting kit than I do my holiday wardrobe, weighing up the pros and cons of watercolours, oils and pastels. During one memorable holiday in France I borrowed my host’s plastic drinks trolley to transport my kit. One day I might invest in a metal field easel, portable table and pop up tent…
Here’s my basic checklist:
Small primed boards or a large clipboard with clips/tape to secure oil paper
Disposable palette pad
Small tubes of oil paint and/or oil pastels
Brushes and palette knife
Small containers of medium, solvent, brush dip, chalk
Small watercolour sketch pad, pencils
Small watercolour box with water container, brush and waterproof ink pen
Paper towels, wet wipes and plastic rubbish bag
Masking tape
Case for transporting wet boards (or cardboard rings made from loo roll to separate boards when stacked on top of each other and taped together)
Something to sit on (a portable stool or plastic bag)
All-weather gear, phone, hat and snacks
Working outdoors
Prime and mask paper surface in advance.
Use a clipboard to secure the paper.
Protect with wax paper to transport if not fully dry.
Consider using Degas's “plénitude d’essence” technique to create a fast-drying pen-and-wash-style painting. You will need tube oil paint that has been thinned by leaching the oil from it and adding a strong solvent.
Or follow Constable’s preferred method as described by London’s V&A Museum:
“When working outdoors, Constable painted on fragments of canvas, millboard or homemade paper. As he explained to a friend in 1825, his oil sketches 'were done in the lid of my box on my knees as usual'. In his open-air oil sketches, Constable applied colour in a variety of ways – rich impasto (thickly applied paint) and glazes (translucent oil paint), heavy dots of bright colour and light touches of pure white. Quick strokes with a brush bearing only a small amount of paint gave a dappled 'dry brush' effect, allowing the colours underneath to show through.”
V&A Museum, London
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