How to pack the perfect traveling art studio

A guide to the the perfect traveling art studio. (Anatoliy Samara/Dreamstime/TNS)

A guide to the the perfect traveling art studio. (Anatoliy Samara/Dreamstime/TNS)

Finding the time to create meaningful art on the road can be a challenge all by itself. Making room for all of your favorite supplies is another hurdle altogether. This fact was driven home to me quite clearly during a fairly intense creative awakening over the past year. As someone who enjoys creating with a variety of materials per piece, I look at the tiny travel studios of fellow world citizens with a bit of envy. Why couldn’t I just fall in love with watercolor, or ink drawing? Instead, mixed media is where I seem to have landed on the creative spectrum.

By carefully curating my collection, however, I was able to find room for the majority of items I use on a regular basis. Following are some of my most workable solutions for bringing your traveling art studio along on a world tour.

Minimizing: Ink pads pack flat and can be refilled from the road. Double ended creative tools are also a big space saver. Consider curating your art materials in a way that includes stick-shaped supplies with a different product on each end. For example, I have a black Sharpie marker that boasts both a fine tip and a broader one. I use it to outline collage elements on art journal pages, and to fill in around found words when I am working on certain redacted poetry pieces. I have also seen basic colored pencils with a different shade at each tip.

Shop carefully for your portable pencil sharpener. You’ll want one that holds the shavings so you can throw them away later when you are near a trash receptacle, but is also space efficient. I have a thin, plastic one shaped like an ellipse. While it’s true I have to empty the shavings more often, the space savings when I pack are completely worth the extra aggravation. Thinner, acrylic cling stamps or unmounted rubber stamps also save space while providing imagery for background development in art journals.

Organizing: If you are the type of artist who enjoys creating a Zentangle page at a cafe with only a white gel pen on black art paper or impromptu urban sketching sessions, then keeping your materials organized can be as simple as opting for an artist's pad, selecting a supply storage pouch that works for you and creating space in your messenger bag or backpack. If you gravitate toward the more material intensive end of the art spectrum as I do, packing becomes notably more complicated.

If this is the case for you too, organizing by category with separate containers will go a long way toward reducing your frustration with accessing your supplies on the road. This will look different for everyone depending on their preferred materials and artistic style. In my case, it means bundling things such as graphite pencils, gel pens and various colored pencil sets together with rubber bands and storing them in different pencil cases according to how and when they are used. It also means incorporating an accordion file and a zippered plastic document pouch to store larger collage elements and loose art pieces in various stages of composition. Smaller items such as individually cut letters, text fragments and smaller images are stored in quart-sized freezer bags.

Liquids: Just like toiletries, art supplies offer their own challenges when it comes to limiting liquids for airline flights. Strategies include selecting hard pans instead of tubes for your watercolor paints, filling the reservoir on your travel-friendly paint brush at the water fountain near your departure gate and using tiny pocket misters for your favorite spray inks.

Additionally, a surprising number of supplies are available in water soluble formats. This not only allows you to manage your liquid items efficiently when flying, but also gives you a two-for-one materials pantry that is high in both value and space efficiency. Examples include both oil and wax pastels, colored pencils and various colors of graphite.

The ability to create in both wet and dry formats with these items makes them too cool for school, in my opinion. For instance, I have a thin, blue square of water soluble graphite that gives me amazing results when moistened and used on mixed media paper. It takes up virtually no space whatsoever in my art case. I also frequently enjoy a variety of fun effects with my travel-size tin of water soluble wax pastels, which are basically adult crayons on steroids.

While many brands of acrylic paint sell travel-friendly bottles of product, I am personally using up the three I have right now before I hop on a plane in a few weeks. Any precious remaining room in my liquids bag will be used for decanted containers of gesso and gloss medium. The jury’s still out on whether or not I’ll be brave enough to triple wrap my bottle of India ink and hope for the best.

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(Lifestyle and travel expert Myscha Theriault blends thrift and luxury to live well for less around the world. You can follow her adventures on Instagram via @MyschaTheriault.)