You may have noticed a number of new watercolor paintings lately. Why all of a sudden have I moved to a new medium? Partly, it’s from the portability. Last summer I picked up a great little travel watercolor kit from Windsor Newton’s Cotman line. The kit fit nicely into my travel bag and I brought it with me regularly to the Doll House Baked Goods’ Farmers Markets.
I started painting some of my #spaceshipaday drawings while hanging out at the markets. One of the images was used for the cover of my Coloring Book, Coloring Space 1. I liked the simplicity and speed. And the Windsor Newton Cotman Watercolors were a lot better than I expected.
I have to credit James Gurney’s blog with a great series on Plein Air Painting techniques. He’s got� great tips on making your own portable art setup. Definitely worth the time to go through if you have any interest in Plein Air Painting – plus he has great dinosaur paintings.
Once I got the hang of the basics, as with any paint media, I started trying out a few other subjects including some of my favorite lighthouses and scenes. Not only is watercolor a fast media to use, it’s quite unforgiving. That forces you to commit to your painting faster than usual. It’s a good exercise and with the right touch they can look fantastic.
I am by no means a master at this, and I don’t claim to be. This is merely another chance for me to explore color in my artwork. As much as I enjoy the digital experience with my iPad, Procreate, and a stylus, there’s something more visceral and rewarding about working with traditional tools.
Artist Travel Kit
These sketches were fun but I was finding that I wanted a few more options during some of the longer market sessions. Then we packed for a long RV trip to Michigan and I wanted to bring some of my paint supplies with me.� I was limited to a few pens, pencils and smaller 4″ x 6″ cut sheets of watercolor paper – my basic drawing package that I bring with me almost everywhere. But back home I had a lot more tools and supplies that I often used in my studio. To get things a bit more portable I started gathering my essentials into a larger kit.
I started with a fine wooden box from Chateau Ste. Michelle, a perfect size for my kit. It would be a bit larger than a sling-bag but it gave me a few more options while on location.
Now I have a bigger container of pens, including my ink-well style pens from ages ago when I drew my cartoons by hand. They still work very well. I also have a small Prismacolor Colored Pencil set, a new box of Pentel watercolors that I’m just starting to try out, my old design pastels, Golden liquid acrylic paints, a jar for water, erasers, and several pencil sharpeners. It all fits nicely in the box and it even leaves enough room for a wider variety of watercolor paper sizes.
Sure it’s a bit more to carry than my sling bag, but it also acts as its own tabletop when I don’t have a lot of flat surfaces. Later I’ll figure out an option for mounting a tripod and maybe re-work the lid into a drawing table with optional angles, who knows. The existing hinges are more decorative and won’t hold up well� with repeated heavy usage.
I’m looking forward to doing a lot more of these, especially once we open our new shop. There I’ll have the room to work on paintings in the public full-time.
Now Available In My Store
A number of these are already available for sale in my store. I’m offering the originals right now and will be offering prints once I decide on a proper avenue for producing them. As much as I hate to turn this into a giant sales pitch, the purchases do help me continue making these. Thank you all
