Art Retreat in France: Packing My Supplies

 

Just a few more days and then I'm off to France! My first holiday in three years: Le Vieux Couvent and a splash ink class with my friend and art teacher, Ming Franz. Along with 15 other splash ink enthusiasts, I will be gone for two weeks, ending with a final day and night in Toulouse before our flight home.

I've wanted to take a workshop at Le Vieux Couvent ever since I first heard about it in a Domestika class during the pandemic. The course instructor posted on his website that if and when the travel restrictions were lifted, he would be teaching his next workshop there. I remember thinking about how much fun a trip like that would be and how much I wanted to go. Unfortunately, I never got there--until now when Ming told me she was teaching a class in that very spot and I couldn't wait to sign up.

And as excited as I am to finally be going to Le Vieux, there remains a certain bittersweet element to the timing. Back during Covid when I was daydreaming about painting mini-masterpieces close to Cathar country (I'm obsessed with Cathar history), my husband was still alive making great plans of his own. He thought it would be an amazing opportunity to accompany me on the trip not as an art student, but to go vintage car hunting. He had heard of a local car rental company hiring out vintage vehicles and couldn't make up his mind whether we would rent a Lamborghini or just a plain old MGB for touring the Dordogne when my workshop finished. The idea was that while we were out driving, we'd be looking for a vintage auto or motorcycle to buy and bring home for restoration. It was a wonderful plan. Except you know what they say about plans.

Obviously, things didn't work out so well. Instead of packing for two and wondering if I'd be needing a headscarf in case we ended up in a convertible, I'm doing my best to prepare for my first solo attempt at "I-can-do-it travel" without having a non-stop panic attack. To keep myself as distracted as possible, I've been concentrating on accumulating travel art supplies--both the required ones for the course and a complement of fun items for my own daily sketching.

Splash ink, or po-mo to use the correct Chinese term, requires some heavy-duty accoutrements: large sheets of mulberry paper, trays to place the paper in, jars and jars of liquid watercolor and sumi ink, and a wide variety of additional bits and pieces not that easy to travel with. Thankfully Ming will be bringing the paper and paints, but to help lighten the load we've all been asked to bring the following items for individual studio use:

• 12 plastic spoons
• 12 plastic cups
• 1 roll of Frog tape
• 1 apron
• 1 pair of rubber gloves
• plastic wrap
• 1 hake brush
• 4 watercolor brushes, flats and rounds
• 1 mixing palette 
• 1 spray bottle
  

Also required is a roll of heavy duty foil. Again, thankfully, another participant has offered to bring a roll to share with me, and I am very grateful!

So now that I have that all done, my next step is choosing the sketching supplies for my personal use outside of the class, and believe me, choosing the "right stuff" has not been easy. I have dithered and re-thought and changed my mind so many times (including the middle of the night when I jumped out of bed to add yet one more perfect pencil to the pile) I am sure one of my conclusions was to "not bring anything at all." However, I think I have finally settled on my will-not-change kit and this is it:

• A tiny tray of Daniel Smith watercolors. The set I have here began life as the DS urban "Sketcher Set" created by artist Liz Steel of only six colors, but since buying it I have added some personal favorites, including Buff Titanium and Undersea Green. 
  
• A Hannemuhle concertina watercolor sketchbook. I bought this particular sketchbook at Christmas to start a series of "Bunny in the Snow" paintings that morphed into "Bunny Goes Wild" drawings in a completely different sketchbook I won't be taking with me. (The story of my life.) The reason I chose to bring the concertina book on this trip was a) it's very lightweight, and b) I thought it would be fun to experiment with a continuous sketch that filled a single book from front to back, cover to cover, and c) it was just sitting there on the shelf, so why not? Use it or lose it.
  
• A pad of high-quality bright white drawing paper made by Peter Pauper Press. This will be for some "Bunny in France" (or any other animals I may encounter) thumbnail sketches.
  
• 3 waterbrushes: 2 flats, 1 round. Tip for traveling with waterbrushes: do not fill with water until you arrive at your destination, and keep the brush section very loosely attached to the barrel while you travel. If you tighten the sections together too strongly, the compression in the plane can lock everything up and prevent you from taking the brush apart to fill with water when you're ready to do so. Which means you will break it, like I did on a previous flight.
  
• 1 woodless pencil made in Italy that is the most expensive pencil I have ever bought in my life (and it was even at a discounted price). But it is beautiful, doesn't roll off the table, and is the best bunny drawing pencil money can buy. 
• 1 Bic #7 mechanical pencil for detail drawing.
  
• 1 thick lead sketching pencil for shading and because I bought it on a trip to the Metropolitan Museum in New York years ago it carries happy memories. (I bought a few of them in case you were wondering how one pencil could last so long.)
  
• 1 Koh-i-noor Magic pencil. These pencils are indeed magic. Several shades of color all combined into one lead, they are super fun to use whenever you want to quickly add some color to any kind of sketch.
  
• 1 gray shading flexible fiber tip pen. (Confession: I don't really like this pen, but it seemed a good opportunity to use it up and toss it before I go home. My hope is that I will actually grow to like it and discover all kinds of interesting uses for it. Maybe.)
  
• 2 #8 black Gelly pens. I love these pens in all their colors, but black seemed the most sensible for this trip. I am bringing two so that I have one for writing as well as drawing.
  
• 1 double-hole pencil sharpener so that I can sharpen both my large and regular-size pencils.
  
• 1 black eraser. I try not to use an eraser but sometimes they are a life-saver. Black erasers are my favorites.
  
• 1 glue stick. Besides being handy for pasting ticket stubs, fortune cookie wisdom, and any other strange little bits of ephemera inside my sketchbook, the ability to collage or simply paste a clean piece of paper over a failed sketch is one of life's great creative miracles.
  
•  2 binder clips to hold my sketchbook flat.
  
• 1 six-inch plastic ruler to help with my terrible sense of perspective as well as possibly helping me to draw straight lines. (Or that's the hope at any rate.)
  
• 1 zippered pouch (made from recycled soda bottles) declaring my eternal love for cats. The pouch is small but big enough to hold absolutely everything other than the sketchbook and pad.

Because I will also be writing as well as painting, I'll have this cute Moleskine cachet journal handy featuring a Van Gogh sunflower study on the cover. A friend recently brought it home from Europe for me and it's a great reminder to stay loose, stay happy, and stay creative every day! (Thank you, Sue!)

 

Tip of the Day: Seize the day. Go for it. Just do it. Yes--and all the other clichés you can think of. They're true. They're real. They're the best advice ever. So what are you waiting for? Whether it's starting your novel, buying your first sketchbook, or wanting to travel to Siberia--take the leap, because . . . if not now, when?