I know many artists and crafters that have a hard time marrying their travel with their art or craft. Some have asked me what art/crafts supplies they should bring when they go for a trip. My answer is based more on my own experience, so it may be different for another person.
First, there are some things to consider:
- Are you travelling along or with others? If you are alone, you can stop wherever you like and start painting or drawing on the spot and take your time doing it; but if there are others in your group, you may not have that luxury since you have to keep up with them.
- Are you going to a place where you have to pay for hotel, food, etc.? This can make your travel more costly, so you have to think if you are willing to spend more money in order to stay more time in a place. And another question comes: How much time do you have for a trip? Can you afford to spend several hours or days in one place or do you have more places that you’d like to visit?
- What are you willing or able to carry? Some art/craft materials are not just bulky but also heavy.
My family and I just came back from a wonderful vacation in Ecuador. We had a limited number of days to visit interesting and very exotic places. I made two journaling books in which I included watercolor paper, envelopes and lighter paper for journaling. One book was for me and the other one for my son. I also brought different colors of journaling pens, a compact watercolor case, pencils and brushes.
I had all the good intentions to do lots of journaling and also to sketch and paint. Things don’t always happen as we plan (at least in our family) and there are many circumstances that we can’t prevent. Between renting cars, airports, packing for the family and follow the itinerary, it was very difficult to accomplish almost anything else. I managed to write some and to sketch a little between planes or at the end of an extremely fun but exhausting day, but not as nearly as much as I hoped.
I carried my materials with me almost all the time, I just didn’t have the opportunity to do much since there was a lot to see and experience.
What did I learn? I learned that time with family is not the best time to devote yourself to your art. I liked to take my book with me since it wasn’t so heavy. I was glad that I included pockets in my book, I put all sort of things there. I also added pamphlets or documentation that I found.
This experience also reinforced the importance of having a good digital camera. I brought my Nikon SLR with me. The camera is not small or light but takes wonderful pictures. Taking pictures gave me the opportunity also to include my family in my activities. At the same time, the pictures reminded me of the details of the day and the locations in case I wanted to paint them.
Now that I’m at home, I’m putting my book together: journaling, receipts and all the ephemera collected during the trip. I’m looking at the pictures that we took, hundreds of moments, with different perspectives according to who was behind the camera. Another good choice was to bring two other cameras with us on the trip: one small and the other a waterproof camera; that allowed us to be prepared for many situations and gave all of us the opportunity to be part of recreating the memories of a extraordinary vacation together.
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