FORUM.TERMINAL_LEVY

I've been meaning to return to painting (oils for now) and drawing outside and wanted to get ready for it.
With that i'd love to know what everyone uses for their sessions, maybe some useful tips that aren't as obvious when you're starting out after many years of not doing that. Also do you usually do it standing if there's no spot to land? (been thinking about getting a little folding chair)

I love going plein air mode when it's warmer outside but I use gouache because it's a lot less fussy than acryllics (if you let them dry on a brush you can kiss it goodbye), watercolours (just personal preference but i think watercolour is really hard and it kinda needs a specific setup) or oils (they can dry really slow, and you might end up needing a wet panel carrier on top of everything else). Also dirty water is a lot easier to dispose of compared to dirty turpentine or gamsol.

Generally you don't need that much to start - like 2-5 paints (usually when I go out I bring a zorn palette + some kind of blue), ~2 brushes, some container for water/solvent (if you plan to go oils and use gamsol or something similar, you'll want a completely watertight container so you can dispose/recycle dirty solvent properly), a rag to wipe your brushes on & some kind of painting surface - for me it's usually just an ~A5 sized mixed media sketchbook.

Some tips that I think are not super obvious are: 1. you can just test your plein air setup indoors painting at home and seeing if anything is missing or if you don't actually need something. 2. just decide on one format you work in so you have less decisions to make when you're outside - like I said, most of my stuff is around ~A5 just because that lets me be decently portable while also resulting in paintings that I personally like.

I usually sit down when I'm painting just because it's easier to use my setup that way, but if you're standing I recommend getting a portable easel or setting up something like James Gurney's easel. I think you technically could hold your palette & paint surface in one hand and paint that way but I find that it's an uncomfortable position to be locked into for ~1 hour.

mhm, I guess i'm a bit lucky it's pretty warm here most of the year! But my hands do get cold very easily so finding a good weather as winter is coming along might be a problem...I really should try gouaches as it seems it would probably the easiest way to actually do some outdoors painting, i remember always having a lot of little problems with oils (and obv back in the day i haven't had or made a wet painting carrier or anything and didn't even know how people deal with it, apparently our teachers didn't know either???But honestly i think it'd also be fun to make one myself) Also as i was gearing up for oils a bit, i was surprised how expensive turpentine is, maybe it always been like that but i always felt like it was pretty cheap ten years ago back home.

Right now it's pretty much what i have, 5 paints and 3 brushes, some turpentine and linen oil (i probably wouldn't want to use that outdoors) a few suitable containers for solvent and quite a few small format primed cardboard cutouts.

That's actually something I haven't thought of - testing it indoors or close to the house to see if there's something really inconvenient that i forgot, that's a great advice! I painted just a little bit home recently but the setup was obviously not the plen air one.

Portable easel is def something i should get..Back in the day I had a quite heavy wooden box version of a portable easel and I really wouldn't want to return to that and would prefer having something lighter. I'll look into this James Gurney setup!

Thank you for all the great advice!

Unfortunately those big pochade boxes do make a lot of sense for oils since you're carrying a bunch of extra equipment around, though they make them in different sizes.

mhm, i'd honestly would probably ended up using it anyway it i had it alongside myself until i'd get something more up my speed, but it is quite fun to think and plan on what i'm going to make for this.
I remember hauling two of these boxes full of paints and tools helping a person i want to impress back in college and boy my back wasn't appreciating it even back then.

what kind of containers do you usually use for water? I have a small watercolor kit I really like (this lil guy) but don't have an elegant solution for the water cup to keep it compact.

I used this cup by Faber-Castell for a while but I found this Hahnemühle one this summer and think it's way better for plein air - it collapses to just slightly over 1cm and the lid is watertight so you can have an easier time taking your dirt water to a garbage bin or wastewater drain.

These look very useful, i'd really need to get something that collapses like that, honesly just been using whatever kind of glass jars i just had my hands on after cooking things and nothing specialized for plein air.

i put together a lil plein air kit earlier this summer! i was always an acrylics squirrel but amos inspired me to try gouache and it's been... well, there's definitely a learning curve but it's been fun overall. i'm so used to acrylic's quick dry time & being able to layer without lifting what's underneath, the way gouache reactivates makes me want to bite my brush in half sometimes lol.

i have

- a hardshell case for holding everything
- zorn + ultramarine tubes
- small airtight palettes for holding paint (i don't need to bring the tubes but i still do )
- 3 little foldout palette things for mixing space
- like 6 brushes (small & medium flats & rounds, one rigger)
- a microfiber cloth
- an orange colored pencil, sharpener & eraser for laying down the sketch
- a water jug
- collapsible silicone camping cups

camping cups are nice! they flatten & have lids that can keep stray droplets from getting everywhere after you rinse out the dirty water. i got a two pack so i use one for getting paint off my brush and the second to get the dirty water off the brush.

oh and a waterproof picnic blanket!! i like sitting on the ground while i paint. it'd be nice to get an easel and pochade box someday, they're just so expensive... T-T

thank you amos, mina and skweeki for the great and full replies, i'm going to be getting all the parts I need during this winter to start doing plein airs the spring and trying to remember how to handle oils at home now...I really want to try gouaches but need to get some.
So far oils are kicking my ass i completely forgot how to work with it but, i'm sure i'm going to figure it out again.
Also definitely need to visit some travel/camping stores and see if they have any of the collapsible cups, i really never thought about that and it sounds extremely useful! I'll get some pictures of the set I end up gathering when the time comes...