Jolie Guillebeau: Paintings & Musings

Disclaimer: This works for me when I fly, but TSA is a fickle beast, so no guarantees, ok?

I love to travel. Maybe not as much as other Guillebeaux we know, but I love to travel. I’m more of a luxury traveler than an adventure traveler, so I’ll leave the guest houses in Mongolia and the bus trips through East Africa to him, and I’ll stick with my kind of adventures. The Creme Brulee kind.

I also love to paint. And these things don’t always work together so well. For four years, while we lived on a ship in West Africa, I sacrificed my love for oil paints, because a certain captain (Hi Jurryan!) wasn’t that excited about me having turpentine or other highly flammable substances in my cabin.

Obviously the TSA isn’t that thrilled about it either. But there are work arounds. So this is what I do. Again, your mileage may vary.

Cat included for scale. And because she wouldn't move.

This suitcase must hold everything. Clothes, books, iPod, makeup, and painting supplies. And it does. Every time. People are always amazed that I can travel for three weeks, to two different climates, and take formal wear using carry-on only. I’m always amazed that anyone would wait at a baggage carousel after 15 hours of flying.

Of course, I have my priorities. I’ll wear the same black dress to dinner four nights in a row, but I’m taking my art supplies. I’ve established a tried and true method for this, and I’m going to share my profound packing wisdom with you. This may take a while, so I’m breaking it up into at least two posts.

Option one: Ideal for a short trip to a place with lots of nature and time for painting. For example, on a trip to Sedona, Arizona with the family, I knew I was going to have some downtime for painting when we went on a hike. I knew there were going to be amazing views that I couldn’t easily capture with a camera, and I knew I was going to be in casual clothes all day with little need for makeup. So I filled my obligatory Ziploc bag with oil paints instead of eyeshadow.

Tips for making this work:

• take the paint out of the metal tubes. Go to your friendly local art supply store and buy these little plastic tubs. They come in packs of twelve. They’re leakproof, reusable and they hold a suprising amount of paint. Alternatively, you can save the little canisters that you get samples from at Sephora– they tend to leak a little more and they don’t last quite as long, but they’ll work, too.
• limit your palette. For this trip, I took three primaries, burnt sienna, yellow ochre and white. With 6 small little tubs, your Ziploc bag is much less likely to raise questions.
• mineral spirits– go with a no-odor clear product like Turpenoid or Gamsol. Also in a little tub with a tight seal. I used this sparingly on the trip and cleaned my brushes with baby wipes. If I’m painting a lot, then I make a quick trip to an art supply store and buy a small bottle once I arrive. Use common sense and caution. It’s flammable, yes. But so is hairspray.
• Masonite boards cut to your preferred size. A few years ago, I went to The Home Depot and bought a giant piece of masonite for less than 10 bucks. I batted my eyelashes and the guy that sold it to me cut it using their giant saw. It took him less than five minutes and I got 8 boards in 8×10 size and 10 in 5×7 size. Yes, I had to gesso them myself, but then I had more control over the process. Canvas doesn’t pack well– you can dent the work too easily. You can also buy gessoboard or hardboard at your friendly local art supply store. (Now that I don’t have a car, this is the option I choose. It’s not so heavy.)
• Three brushes. A bright, a flat and a filbert in size 4, 6, and 8 are really all I need when I’m traveling. Sometimes limiting myself leads to work I’m happier with, since I get overwhelmed with choices.
• Baby wipes. Cleaning brushes, getting paint out of your jeans, wiping out that tree you’re not happy with– I never pack enough baby wipes. They go in a small ziploc bag with the masonite.
• Small strips of cardboard and large rubber bands. Drying time is tricky. In Arizona, it wasn’t a problem, but if you fold the strips of cardboard around the edges and place the paintings face to face then the cardboard keeps them separated and protects them from smudges.
• Important: Oil paint is simply pigment ground in linseed oil. Completely safe. So if asked, never use the word “paint.” Paint raises automatic red flags– just say it’s “color ground into linseed oil.”

Another important rule about packing light– you must use everything that you put in the suitcase. If you don’t use it, you don’t get to pack it the next time. I made that rule, so that I would always carve out painting time in every trip.