Plein-air setting

Finding the perfect plein-air setup...

As you may (or may not) know, I love painting on location. But plein-air painting comes with its challenges... One of the first, and by far not the least, is to find the right setup for what you want to do. Here I'm going to share my current setup and how I got there. And at the end I'm also going to share my thoughts on this setting and what I would like to change in the future.

I will update this page whenever I settle on a new setup. Here is a video I made in October 2023 about my plein-air setup :)

MY SETTING (09.2023)

My setting will change depending on the focus I want to have, but here are a few things I keep in mind: 

• I want to have my basic setting ready to go whenever I want (which requires to have supplies specifically for plein-air).
• I want something compact and light, which can fit in different bags.
• I want to be able to adapt to different locations (with or without seats, with or without water, etc.)

All my supplies when packed up. The blue bag is the upper part of my trekking backpack, I can use it as a bumbag. I put all of my brushes in here. In the red bag I have my sketchbook, my watercolors and my gouache. It fits in most of my bags, so I just leave it like that and put i in my whatever bag I'm taking with me. Finally, I have an easel and a tripod. I don't always use the tripod, only when I have time on location to really settle.

Here are all my supplies!

A list of my current supplies (no links are affliated, it is just for your information):

• A watercolor journal from L'Oeil Art (Mellow Art Watercolour Sketching Journal - Grey – Loeil Art Supplies | for creative you)
• A set of 12 cotman watercolors (student quality - travel brush pen set) from Winsor&Newton (Cotman Watercolour Travel Set | Winsor & Newton - International (winsornewton.com)). I have put them in a Sennelier metal watercolor palette (the one holding 12 half-pans), which allows me to secure it with on the magnetic part of my easel. I have sticked with the colors from the original set: lemon yellow hue, yellow ochre, alizarin crimson hue, burnt sienna, sap green, viridian hue, cerulean blue hue, ultramarine, dioxazine purple, Payne's gray, lamp black and chinese white. The set is nice with primaries, earthy tones, and "shadow" colors like purple, grey and black (which I use only to darken other colors).
• 7 Linel gouache from Lefranc-Bourgeois (Gouache Linel Extra-fine | Lefranc Bourgeois). I currently use: primary yellow, persan yellow, primary red, red ochre, primary blue, ultramarine, Payne's Gray. A bigger tube of white gouache from Pébéo. Basically, I have two sets of primaries, the grey acts as a blueish black and the white... as a white. All my gouache tubes are in a metal box (from a set of Hähnemüle watercolor postcards) along with my waterbrush from the Winsor&Newton set (which does not fit anymore in the palette).
• A set of Raphaël precision travel brushes and their bamboo roll. I use them mostly for gouache and for very fine details where I need a thicker consistency. I have also added a white paint pen (from Pébéo) and a pipette (to refill my waterbrushes and to rewet my paints).
• 6 polychromos colored pencils from Faber-Castell (Crayons de couleur Polychromos (faber-castell.fr)): light ultramarine, light yellow ochre, India red, Earth green yellowish, burnt umber, blue violet. I have chosen the colors myself, to add accents in the landscapes painting or to deepen the shadow areas.
• 2 black fine liners: a 0.1 from Faber-Castell and a 0.5 Pigma Micron. I used to do a lot of ink&watercolors, but more and more I tend to go for full paints. Anyway, it is nice to have them for the captions or some details.
• A uniball signo white gel pen. I feel like the gel pen and the paint pen don't act the same, so I like to have them both with me.
• 2 water brushes: a bigger and a finer one. It complements nicely the waterbrush from Winsor&Newton and I can do almost everything (regarding watercolors) with these three.
• A blue erasable colored pencil from Faber-Castell. I recently discovered that it is always nice to do a quick sketch. I used to have a green one but I didn't like how it looked underneath the watercolor.
• A graphite pencil and a small eraser which I have never used except for... other things than art!
• A collapsible water jar from Faber-Castell, that I use only when I can sit and wash my water (at the restaurant, at the hotel, etc.)
• A kneaded eraser (on the small pink box), that I use mostly when I am not on location, but when I paint during my travels.
• A plastic hermetic water holder, in which I can bring my clean water and bring back my dirty water. I also have a "just in case" small bottle of clean water.
• A few clips and a rag/tissue

It's quite a few things but it stays pretty compact and I can adjust depending on what I'm doing. For instance, when I only want to do a quick watercolor study, I only bring my sketchbook, waterbrushes, and watercolor palette.

I also use a tripod and easel. I first started with a homemade one: a sketching board with a integrated clip. My parents put some magnets underneath, and then it could be fixed on an old - and very light - photographic tripod. It was nice but a bit flimsy. As I was going to Scotland, my parents offered my the Stablo easel and a Fotopro tripod (it is very stable and the height is better than in most of the tripod I've found). 

The Stablo easel is really nice with the upper part being magnetic (that's why I bought a new palette). It is very sturdy and can hold quite a lot. I also took the adaptator to mount it on a tripod. L'Original, le nouveau chevalet nomade — StablO 

I have also bought a sitting mat (you can find it in the camping section of outdoor shops), so that I ca just sit and paint wherever. 

Here is what it can look like when I'm working only with watercolors. I'm still experimenting different combinations.

This setup has been evolving constantly, as I was learning what I liked to do and my needs when painting on location. I first started only with my sketchbook, plastic palette of Winsor&Newton cotman watercolors, water brushes and fineliner. Then I added a white gel pen. The next big step was to find something to work even when I couldn't sit at a table (with the homemade easel). And slowly I have been adding pencils, erasers, etc. to the setup, depending on how I wanted to work. 

October 2023. Plein air session with watercolors and colored pencils. Retzbach, AT.

UPDATES 10.2023

As as continuing my art journey, my setup is of course evolving. The basis remained the same (depending on how light / heavy I can travel, I will not bring it all...), but I've made a few amendments. 

1) I have added a variety of handmade sketchbooks. My watercolor journal is only for painting what I see in front of me (it's a rule I've set to myself, and for now I'm happy with it). However, when I'm travelling I sometimes want to practise different things, paint from photos, etc. and that's why I now keep another small watercolor sketchbook, and a tiny toned paper sketchbook. I've made them from pads I have at home, so that I can put only a few pages and have something very light.

2) I use a dry gouache palette instead of taking my tubes of gouache. It's just so much easier and convenient :)

3) I sometimes bring in a pencil case with other pens, water-based markers, etc. depending on the mood of the day! 

My dry gouache palette and 2 handmade sketchbooks.

UPDATES 02.2024

I have subscribed to Sarah Burns x Craftamo gouache subscription for 2024, and the first box came with a small transparent mixing palette, a little spray bottle and a painter tape. I decided to add those to my plein-air setup, as I already had some for the studio, and they had a very compact format.

You can even clip the mixing tray to your sketchbook while painting, which is very convenient! The advantage of the transparency is that you can see how the color looks like on the paper you are using (for instance, white will look quite intense on dark papers).

WHAT NEXT?

I've made this setup for my trip in Scotland (you can see it in action here). I really like how versatile it is. I can settle for a long time and just enjoy the process of painting, without being caught in the logistics of plein-air. Whether it is to paint a forest scenery with gouache, or do a quick study on the beach, it is always very enjoyable!

Some parts still need to be improved. For instance, I would like to have a better bag/case to carry my supplies: I cannot bring everything on this one (the red case), and the closing system needs to be improved. I also want to experiment with different brands of gouache: the one I'm using is nice but tends tends to be a bit tacky. Ideally, I would like to find a bigger flat travel brush, and I would love to do alcohol-based markers on location, but for now I don't know which one to bring, how to bring them, on which paper to draw... still a lot to explore here!

I hope this will help some of you! The most important is to start exploring, go out and paint with whatever you have, and then you can slowly build your perfect setup.

Please share your own setting in the comments! I would love to learn about your tips to go plein-air painting.