Travel is on the horizon and I want to keep up the momentum of my drawing practice so I need to take some equipment. But what to take and how to transport it? My full drawing box is a carpenters tool caddy and has a hefty weight to it. We are planning to travel on hand baggage only so weight and size are crucial.
First to decide what is the minimum that I need; firstly a pencil & a sketch book then some means of sharpening (not a knife as it won’t be allowed in hand-baggage) and an eraser and finally some coloured pencils and a blender/burnisher.
I used Jane Strother’s book ‘The Coloured Pencil Artist’s Pocket Palette‘ to help me choose which of my 100+ coloured pencils would earn it’s place to travel to foreign parts.
These are the chosen ones and I made a little test card to see the colours. At the end of the row are a blender, a burnisher, a graphite pencil (H), and an eraser pencil with a brush; all held together in a holder made by making channels in a piece of elastic – genius I thought as now they won’t roll around all over the place!
Sketch book has to be small too, so I chose an A6 hardback book with cartridge paper from Jackson’s Art Supplies.
Pencil sharpener in self seal bag as I don’t want to drop pencil shavings.
And finally a bag to put it all in. I found fabric, elastic and toggle closure in my stash and made a drawstring bag to hold it all.
I am a little worried, as my pencils are sharp, will they be allowed onto the plane? I am going to have to take a chance on that and just keep my fingers crossed that I do not look like someone who will use a pencil as a deadly weapon. But the pencils are sharp so I raided the bathroom to find a tube to slide over the pencil roll to protect the tips.
Finally, all is ready and the whole lot weighs in at 280gms
Now I just have to remember to use it when I am away…………….
wonderful travel companion! Hopefully the sketchbook will come back FULL with beautiful images! Love from your Mother x
Lovely! I take knitting needles now so I’m sure pencils would be ok. Draw away and travel safe.
Oh! knitting needles are allowed now? Well pencils should definitely be OK then. Fingers crossed.
Love it Sue. So compact. A piece of art in itself. Looking at the extent of your colour range you are working along the principle that red and green make brown, magenta and lemon can make orange etc etc and I’m sure you’ve thought it through most carefully but dark brown can be difficult – ….. something to make darker shading in addition to dark blue? Just a suggestion. Have fun and look forwards to seeing your sketches!Alison
That’s a really good point, I have included the dark grey to give darker tones, maybe I should drop one of the yellows and include a brown?
love the idea of the toilet roll for protecting the pencils!! 🙂