Bullant

Unable to walk for 3 days gave me this opportunity to express the agony of a Bullant bite. I gestured some physical aspects of the ant and coupled this with jagged expression of pain. The day before I had been calmly marvaling at the shiny blues reflecting off the ant bodies. I followed them with my camera only centimetres away and they protested with their pincers raised. The next day while shifting the solar panel I unknowingly stood on their main nest. Agony! Gouach & pencil on card.

backpack mini art kit

To avoid carrying a heavy backpack, the art kit I carry in my backpack is super small and super light.

To sketch when out and about, all I really need is a small good quality hard cover sketch book, a set of 3 different width pens, a retractable pencil and a small box of watercolour, plus a paintbrush with its handle sawn off.

When packed up this kit can fit into my hand or placed in a backpack pocket or into a pocket in my cargo pants.

choosing a compact art kit

art kit

Size really does matter when living in a small campervan. Just about everything gets pared down to absolute essentials or smallest options. After 7 months making art on the road I have reconfigured my art kit to items that are essential, small and effective.

paint, primer & medium
Gouache is a concentrated opaque watercolour paint. You get a lot of pigment in a small tube and when the paint dries it can be rewetted and used. Gouache likes to grip onto a surface, so I use a gritty primer to key the surface and help the gouache 'stick'. I chose a transparent primer so I can use any colour by adding pigment to the primer. As I most often start with a black or white surface, I have two tubes of inexpensive black and white acrylic paint to add to the primer, but I could also use gouache to tint the primer. Gum Arabic is new to me. I'm just trying it out. When mixed with gouache it allows transparency, flow and sheen. I have 3 stackable plastic pallets. My brushes are a mix of very cheep and a few better quality favorites.

surface
It is easy to find card along my travels. Sometimes a framer may sell the inside of mount board, or I can buy an inexpensive sheet of card and cut into small rectangles. I also have some pads of coloured card and a couple of small sketch books.

dry colour
I like to work over paintings to add a variety of marks which energise the art piece. My favourite colour pencils are Progresso wood-less pencils. Again you get a lot of colour form a set of these pencils and you may never need to buy coloured pencils again.

pens & pencils
A variety of pens have to come with me. From thick to fine, water soluble to permenant, black to white, I keep my pens for detail. Pencils are much the same, I have my favorites, thick greasy Chinagraph, heavy 8B graphite, fine 2B, black, grey, white, a broad selection.

When packed up my art kit is condensed, easily stored and simple to access.

searching for purple

Searching for Purple
gouache & pencil on card. 25cm x 13cm 

Amongst the dry sticks, grey brown leaves and gravel path my eyes searched for any glimpse of purple. In NW Queensland, both the Purple Fairy Wren and the Greater Bowerbird display magnificent shades of purple. Here I recall the experience of searching for purple and the thrill of watching the play of colours.

Art on artefacts

We drove some hundreds of km on a dirt road, sometimes a rock road. The landscape dry with grey stick trees and waves of straw grass. Nothing over 2 meters in height. We reached Adels Grove. It was an oasis of deep lush tropical forest adjoining a turquoise crystal clear river. Walking along the river I studied the stones, some of which gleamed opaque ochre and red. Holding them I realised that some were purposely shaped. In this painting I tried to capture the awe I felt when I realised I was holding an artefact once used by the original Australian custodians.

2014   "Artefacts"  25 x 13 cm gouache & pencil on card

Painting pandanus shadows

The red cliffs of Australia are a colour hit of deep reds and oranges. The dense shadows against the sun bleached rock provide strong contrast. Here I used dry material over paint to create a little looseness which describe the movement of the leaves and shadows. 25 x 13 gouache & pencil on card.

Pandanus