I have traveled many times before and I have found that committing to daily art while traveling takes some planning ahead. This will be the first time that I’m traveling with Gouache so I wanted to do a test run at home before we set out.
There has been many times when my painting or drawing materials have become such fixtures of my routine that I easily forget them at home. By doing a Gouache travel test painting at home as if I was on vacation, or pretending that I’m in a hotel room I can quickly see what I need and don’t need. Sometimes I even realize that I have forgotten something very essential.
For tonight’s painting I figured that the only thing I could count on in the hotel room would be a surface,a cup, a seat and a light. The rest I would have to provide myself. The art materials I will be bringing for our trip will be…
- Gouache paint
- Brushes
- 10 4×6 Crescent 10 boards
- Roll of tape
- Small newsprint pad
- Very small sketch book
- Small assortment of pens
- Pencil box with conten 1710 pencils, sharpener and sanding pads
This is really not a lot of supplies compared to my setup when I would paint with oils on a trip. One of the largest things that I don’t have to bring is an easel. That will lighten my load tremendously. I think the worst thing about traveling with oil paints is trying to not smear wet paint while packing the paintings in luggage. So needless to say Gouache will allow me to travel much lighter with a lot less headaches and keep up my daily art routine with paintings and not just drawing.
My Gouache Travel Test Painting Setup
I didn’t even use my easel tonight, I wouldn’t have it. I wouldn’t even have my light setup, so I pulled a lamp from our bedroom that I thought would closely match a lamp in a hotel room and set it on my desk with my still life.
The Gouache Travel Test Subject
The travel test painting went well, I had all I needed and was ecstatic of how light I will be able to travel while hopefully completing some good paintings in less than ideal locations.