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Traveling can be a great source of inspiration for artists. Whether you’re into urban sketching, painting landscapes, botanical drawings or still life paintings, they’re all great things to do during a trip abroad or in your own country.
If you want to travel lightly, however, it’s not always practical to take all of your art supplies with you. That’s why we’ve picked out some handy travel-friendly art supplies that are small enough to take with you in your hand luggage or backpack. Let’s explore the possibilities!
The first thing you most likely will need is paper to draw or paint on. Talens Art Creation, for instance, offers many sketchbooks in different sizes to make quick sketches or elaborate drawings in. They also offer paper pads with drawing paper and ones suitable for various types of paint. Both the sketchbooks and paper pads come in convenient sizes and offer you a sturdy surface to work on.
If you work with water colours, here’s a fun tip: Van Gogh offers postcard-sized water colour paper pads with both black and white paper. The back of each sheet has a postcard print on it, so when your painting has dried, just stick a stamp on the back and send it off!
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Mechanical pencils are a great way to minimise the number of items you take with you since they don’t need to be sharpened and have an eraser on one end, so that’s three items in one! Sakura offers two different types of mechanical pencils: Sumo Grip, a sturdy pencil with a comfortable grip to write or draw with and XS, a slimmer pencil that takes up even less space!
Do you use more than one pencil hardness? Bruynzeel offers this convenient set of 6 graphite pencils. It comes in a sturdy tin that protects your pencils from damage while traveling! Of course, Bruynzeel offers many handy tins with coloured pencils as well.
While traveling, you may want to avoid carrying fluid paint products, especially if you travel by plane! That’s why Sakura offers convenient Koi water colour pocket boxes with dry water colour paint. The boxes include a sponge, mixing tray and a Koi Water Brush with a water tank in its barrel so you can always activate the paint, wherever you are! Just squeeze a little water from the barrel to the tip of the brush and start painting.
Van Gogh also offers pocket boxes with replaceable half pans of water colour paint, so you can easily switch up the colours to create the perfect palette for your style of painting. These boxes also include a mixing tray and a retractable synthetic brush. With this set, you do need an extra container for water, but the highly pigmented colours are definitely worth it! Van Gogh water colours also come in small tubes.
If you don’t mind carrying tubes of paint and like to work with acrylic colours, Amsterdam offers different sets with small tubes as well. They might be a little less convenient to take with you while traveling, but the bright colours make up for it!
Do you like working with acrylic paint, but aren’t a fan of carrying around different tubes? Amsterdam offers their convenient acrylic markers so you can paint straight out of a marker instead of taking tubes of paint with you. These markers are available in three different nib sizes and 46 colours in total!
If you enjoy the vivid, bright colours of Ecoline liquid water colours, but aren’t too excited about the idea of lugging around a bunch of glass bottles, good news: Ecoline also comes in a convenient brush pen! This way you can draw with the same brilliant colours straight from a flexible brush tip.
Fineliners are great for quick sketches and detailed drawings or to emphasise lines with in your existing drawings or paintings. Sakura is most well-known for their waterproof, permanent fineliners called Pigma Micron. These fineliners come in many sizes and colours so you can create elaborate works without carrying too many pens! They’re available separately, but also in convenient sets.
These are just some examples of products you can take with you on your trip. If you make any drawings or paintings on your next trip, we would love to see them! Share your work with us on social media using #RoyalTalens to inspire us and others. Have fun exploring the world and your creativity!
