Our vacation to Maine happened this week and
what a lovely time it was! For me a travel journal is a must to have along. No matter where
you are going this is a fairly straightforward process.
I work both with dry and wet media. A basic kit though does
not have to include wet media. Basic needs for your kit are a pencil and a pen.
But if you’re like me, I like a variety of options to use in the journal.
My personal kit includes watercolors, a couple of paintbrushes,
a pencil or two, and different types of pens.
Let’s get more detailed.
Store bought watercolor travel kits can be very expensive. The pros of spending
the money on this type of kit is that it comes with quite a few colors, a brush
and a container or flask for clean water. Depending on the style of kit, the lid
of it serves as a water receptacle for cleaning the brush. The cons, it comes
with quite a few colors, a tiny round brush and a very small water container. Confused?
Well, it is my belief that you don’t need all those colors. Mixing your own
colors from the primary colors gives your paintings a much more vibrant feel.
You certainly don’t need a white as the paper serves as white and black; well
again, a shadow is better served when mixing all three colors together.
Perhaps you already have a supply of watercolors, but not a
travel kit. Then you can build your own kit. I’ve posted a do-it-yourself (DIY)
video here that makes it super easy.
As
mentioned above, the store bought kit comes with a brush. I have never used
mine as it is so tiny. Instead I bring along a small, but useful round brush
and a ¼ inch or ½ inch flat brush. If desired, you could cut the long handle
down for ease of travel. The flask is also fairly useless as it too is small.
What’s wrong with carrying a bottle of water? Nothing, I have water for my art
and a sip! Then the lid used for cleaning. Get a telescoping cup. Do you
remember those? You can store it flat, so not much space is taken up.
Regardless if I have a store bought or DIY kit, I carry a
small amount of tissue and a Q-tip or two. These are for taking up color from
areas that I want to be less vibrant and to dry my brushes off when I’m
changing colors or ending my journaling session.
What are Primary colors? They are red (magenta), yellow and
blue. This could mean Alizarin Crimson,
Phthalo blue and a Cadmium Yellow. However, it is up to you and your
preferences as to what hue you choose. If you remember from elementary school
art you can mix those three colors in various combinations to create all the
other colors of the rainbow.
For dry media, I like to carry one or two pencils, a hard
lead, such as an H and a softer B quality. I also include several pens. I
prefer Microns with a nib size of .05 and 1.0 . That gives me a wide variety to
choose from. For the pencils, I include a white erasure and either a small
sharpener or a piece of sandpaper.
There you have it! Either way you chose, you’ll have an
awesome way to write and sketch your way through your vacation.
