"Be Prepared"
As I mentioned in my spring blog post, we were planning a holiday, and it was wonderful. Summer, as a whole has been marvelous. Though the good weather was late in coming, once it hit in late June it decided to take up residence. Now we are about to enter September and we still are having predominantly sunshine and warm days. That's not always the case after Regatta Day in St. John's.
Planning a holiday also meant planning what art supplies I wanted to take along. I knew I wouldn't be making "serious art", but I did want to take materials for sketching, and for maintaining my travel journal. You also know, from previous posts, that I am a bit of a supply and DIY geek, so the first thing I considered was a small watercolour palette.
I have W&N Cotman travel set, which I was planning to take, but I had seen the Pocket Palette business card size kit on Pinterest, and elsewhere, and thought I might be crafty enough to make something similar. So let the games begin.
Many years ago, my husband gave me a tiny metal notepad with a pen that kept it closed. While I loved it, I hadn't used it often, so it was ready for a reincarnation.
I found little metal pans online at a cosmetic supply firm (TKB Trading) and I had an old sheet magnet from a calendar, and some small magnet dots from the Dollarama. I glued the magnet to the inside of the notepad base with E6000, and as the metal pans stuck nicely to the magnet I didn't need to use the magnet dots. I used white adhesive contact paper to make the mixing space under the cover.
I had purchased some lovely Shinhan Watercolours from Amazon, so my next task was to fill the pans I wanted.
It was just a matter of filling the pan, and then spreading the paint out with a toothpick. I included Mission Gold Crimson Lake, and W&N Cotman Payne's Gray, because they are favourites. You can see the rest of my palette selections on the sample card above. Once the pans had dried (2 days) I just slipped them into the case and now I have a lovely little kit that I can slip in my pocket with a waterbrush and a pencil.
But for journaling on the trip I wanted a little more. I like a selection of pens, and prefer normal brushes to waterbrushes. The ephemera one collects on a trip needs to be taped or glued in and scissors and rulers are helpful. When I was growing up I had pencil cases for school that held all sorts of art supplies, so while I was in the Thrift Store, I came across a more modern version of this with an inner divider and decided it had potential.
I grant you I am a fan of all things Disney, but this was not the vision I had for my art supplies. Acrylic paint to the rescue. I think the result is much more appropriate.
The kit holds pencils, art eraser, ruler, fountain pens, a white pen and glue pens, along with an assortment of waterbrushes and travel brushes alongside my Cotman paints. There is a plastic card cut from packaging wrapped with washi tape, and there are watercolour paper pieces, binderclips and elastics; water container, colour wheel, spray bottle, paper towel and cloth cuff.
And of course, one must have a matching sketchbook. This was a book of quite sturdy watercolour paper (no weight given) that I picked up at a yard sale. The cover is heavy chipboard.
The truth of the trip was that it was so busy there was little time to sketch anything, and I will leave the details of our travels to a future post. But here is a little tidbit to whet your appetite.
