Leavin' On a Jet Plane.....

I'll admit, I have temporary OCD. Generally, I am not an obsessive person, organized yes, but not obsessive. But packing for a trip is another matter, especially when it involves taking art supplies and been in the planning for a year! Some other artists do posts of what supplies they take along when flying to a plein air painting retreat/workshop, so I thought I would too.

Because I am flying and this airline charges for checked baggage, I wanted to get down to one checked bag. I have a carry-on business style backpack that works really well for under the seat (Samsonite Xenon  http://www.amazon.com/Samsonite-Xenon-Backpack-Case-Black/dp/B007B5POVC). I like this much better than standard backpacks because it sits 'up' on the flat bottom and doesn't fall over. The middle section is really deep and holds my Heilman backpacker size pastel box perfectly, with room for lots more stuff. The back section will hold a laptop. Once I get to my painting location I use this for my art supplies while in the field. I generally switch out all the stuff I needed on the plane and add the art supplies I had to put into the checked bag.

Here's a list of the art supplies I am taking (in suitcase and carry-on):

• Heilman backpacker pastel box, easel attachment  
•  Manfrotto tripod with quick connect attachment
• folding aluminum camp stool (I can stand for one day's worth of plein air, but 6 days wears me out and I need the option to be able to sit and paint) 
•  plein air umbrella (this usually goes, but for this trip to Taos, it appears it will be windy there, so I left it out and saved a couple pounds)
• Gatorboard 9x12" to attach my paper onto for painting
• a piece of matboard lined with glassine to cover paintings on Gatorboard; rubber bands to hold
•  9 sheets of Pastelmat in various sizes and colors
•  10 pieces of my homemade painting surfaces
•  3 sheets of white/Belgium mist Wallis paper
•  2 sheets of UArt paper 600 and 800 grit
• Tracing paper pad - I use this to store and transport finished paintings between the sheets 
•  Pelikan gouache disks and brush (for underpaintings - love this!)
• Viewfinder, Ruby film, colorwheel
• Index cards to use for value thumbnails
• partial rolls of artist's and masking tape,  double sided tape
• cheap eyeglasses
• small scissors
• fold-up shade
• mini clamps
• pencil, Sharpees
• microfiber towel
• Nitrile gloves (http://www.atlasfitgloves.com/atlasgardeninggloves.html) Marc Hanson suggested these for oil painting and I find I like them for pastels also, especially when the weather is a bit cool.
• tiny bottles with SpectraFix, water, Gloves in a Bottle, hand lotion

Here's pics of everything, before I took out the smaller black bag that holds the umbrella and ditched the plastic bin in favor of Ziplocks. I weighed my suitcase with these (minus the Heilman) along with all my clothes and personal items, and it weighed 48.5 lbs! WOW too close to the limit of 50 lbs, and a monster to lift! I have whittled it all down to 43.5 lbs. and have a bit of room for a couple souveniers.

This is quite the victory for me, as last year's trip involved TWO checked suitcases, the backpack and a laptop. I'm taking an iPad Mini for blogging, which will fit into my purse. Hopefully I will be posting lots of interesting things over on my travel blog next week - keep checking there regularly!
http://nartizttravels.blogspot.com/