My portable art kit

I like to create in my art studio—but I also create outside, while traveling and lounging about the house—sketching in front of the tv, on the deck and most of all (now that I’ve replaced reading in bed with art making as my daily wakeup habit), as often as not in bed propped up against sit up pillows.

It’s been a series of trial and error over the years—and review of a lot of YouTube videos looking for ideas from other artists—but I think I’ve finally put together a workable, flexible portable art kit. And the beauty of it is that the pieces of this art kit can be thrown in a tote bag or box around the house—or in a packing cube for a suitcase. Same pieces.

Below I open the packing cube I’m taking to Southern California and New Mexico here in April to show what’s inside.

What you see here are essentially three layers of items that all fit together in a very compact bundle. From bottom to top (which I show in detail below), I have a handmade foam sketchboard, a cutting mat, water cups and a binder clip, a box of collage bits, 3 small sketchbooks, a dry media bag and a wet media bag.

And that’s it!

Now let me show what’s inside.

Normally I’d carry just one sketchbook, but as I’ve said before, I have three main projects for this year, which means I’m working in three books:

Here you see the small 2024 Moleskine 365 that I’m filling with daily art, my green landscape-sized art journal for full and complete creativity just for myself, and a sketchbook, where I practice in my art practice—and tease out ideas for other work and projects.

(Normally at home I use a larger, thicker sketchbook, but for travel I carry this lightweight A5 pamphlet style sketchbook.)

The largest piece of this kit is an AWESOME pen case I found on Amazon:

It’s about 8”X10” and it carries my dry media: pens (okay, kinda dry), graphite pencils, colored pencils (Caran D’Ache Luminance), and collage supplies: glue sticks, small scissors, a small ruler and a craft knife. In that small grey pouch in front I also carry a pencil sharpener, erasers and lead for the mechanical pencil.

That Nova craft knife there in the far back right, by the way, is also a cool find. It’s flat and fully retractable.

I also carry a very small “wet media bag”. This is for travel watercolors (color sheets and/or a small tin of colors), travel paintbrushes, and a paper towel.

I’m ambivalent about carrying wet media. I love Posca pens, ink and goauche, but oh they are messy! They’re difficult to use when you’re not at a table, can easily destroy fabric and furniture, and require a lot of clean up. Also, painting takes time I don’t always have when I’m traveling.

And yet, over the years I’ve found that sometimes I just want and need saturated color. And of all the wet media options, watercolors really are the most compact and lightweight, portable and easiest for clean up. So I carry a very small pouch of watercolor supplies for those times.

And that leads me to the bottom layer of my art cube:

There on the left you see a box, and on the right a cutting mat and a set of two very small stainless steel water cups that clip onto the mat. Those water cups of course are for the wet media.

The box and the cutting mat are for collage. I just love collage SO MUCH and this little set of items - along with the collage tools in the dry media bag - are all I really need to make little collages wherever I go.

As you can see below I fill this 1/2” tall 6X9” box with little paper scraps I’m always collecting. So when I want to collage on the go, I can start here—or I can pick up any magazine I find around the house or out in the world—pull out my cutting mat and cut and piece away.

But wait! What’s under the cutting mat?

This my friends is a binder clip and a handmade, foam sketchboard. I found the idea from some kind artist soul on YouTube (I forgot who, now) and I have to say it is a game changer!

As soon as I came across the video I ran down to Michaels and bought a sheet of foam board, then went home and cut it down to I think 9”X12”. Then, she had me score the piece and fold it in two (without pulling the two sides apart) and THEN I wrapped it in packing tape, including not across but inside the scored fold so it will fold in and out without breaking.

Oh. My. Gosh. This feather light board opens up to lie flat to hold one of the small sketchbooks, which I can also clip together with that binder clip, and it’s strong and it folds to just 9X6”—to fit nicely with the cutting mat of the same size in the art kit.

Wha la! A hard surface to create on the go.

Okay - so that’ s my portable art kit and I’m off to new travel adventures with it.