Brush delivery for plein air!

I have just received a delivery of brushes from Rosemary and Co in England. So impressed that these brushes arrive within 2 days of ordering them. The best thing about getting a delivery of brushes from Rosemary and Co is the little art newletter (book) that always comes with the brushes. It always contains a couple of featured artists with tips and painting advice from those artists.


After my recent trip I decided that I'm going to permanently keep two sets of brushes - one for the studio and one to keep in my plein air bag, so that they never need cleaning and are already packed up and ready to go.
I recently tried out the Rosemary evergreen brushes because I wanted something with a really clean sharp edge.

These do the job!




















My other favourite are the Rosemary Eclipse Angular brushes. I love these. They have a very clean sharp edge and are great for painting straight edges and corners.

Plein air materials and equipment. A week of plein air on Monhegan Island!

I have just returned from a week of plein air painting with Margaret Sheldon, Maria Bennett Hock, Jean Graves and Marji Harmer-Beem. We had an amazing week and could not have been luckier with the weather. I will post more on that later.

For now, I want to record what I took with me, what worked and what didn't.

I highlighted in red changes I would make for next time.

FOR OIL PAINTINGS: 
11 x 14 and 12 x 12 Ampersand Gessobord panels  (took 7 of each but only used 3 of each).  
11 x 14 and 12 x 12 Raymar panel holders
Refined linseed oil 8oz bottle. I almost used all of this, so next time I will take a 16oz bottle.
Large Coulter Plein air easel containing full pad of disposable palette paper. After a love/hate relationship with the easel, I have decided I love it. Very sturdy. A great workhorse and by the end of the week I got pretty speedy at putting it up and down.
Plein air umbrella - this turned out to be ESSENTIAL
Fishermans chair. Very lightweight. Probably could have got by the week without it though, since I stood up to do most of my paintings.
Clip on cup
Grey plastic view catcher
2 x Palette knives; Liquitex 119914 #14 small knife. Could also have done with another smaller knife.
8oz tub Studio soap Used up most of this
Small bottle of brush cleaner solvent 
2 x rolls VIVA kitchen towels (completely ran out but just had enough for 5 large-ish paintings)

Brushes:
Rosemary Brushes:
Ivory Egbert #0
Ivory Rigger #4
Eclipse angular 1/4"
Eclipse angular 3/8"
Eclipse angular 1/2" (x2) (didn't need 2)
Eclipse angular 3/4"
Ivory Filbert #6
Ivory Long Flat #5
Classic short Flat #10 (could have done with another brush this size or larger)
Robert Simmons Titanium Brushes:
Round #2
Bright #4
Bright#8 (could have done with another of these)
+ #6 chisel colour shaper
+ viewcatcher

Oil paint colors:
Large Titanium white
Cad yellow light
Cad Lemon
Quinacridone Magenta
Cad red medium
Phthalo blue
French Ultramarine
Burnt Umber
Burnt Sienna

Ivory Black
Sap Green - found that I didn't use the sap green all that much but I was glad to have it handy. 
Also took cad yellow medium which I didn't end up using. Possibly Cad yellow deep might have been more useful, or cad orange.


 - One small tube of each colour was plenty for the week.

Box of zip loc bags - essential! Especially good to have one handy to put dirty brushes in.
plus old plastic shopping bags for rags.

FOR SKETCHES AND WATERCOLOUR:
Small portable watercolour box 
Small selection of watercolour brushes
Pencils and sharpener
Waterproof black pens

Can for water and brushcleaning
masking fluid and Brushes
Sketchpad

Also had to buy once on the island: spare white, black and aqua watercolour tube.
 


OTHER:
Large Rucksack
Large suitcase to store art material for travelling.
Water bottle
hot drink flask - my flask leaked a couple of times when the backpack was not completely vertical. Now on the lookout for one with better leakproof lid. Needs to be narrow to fit in backpack pocket.
small flashlight (or use phone light)
bug spray
paracetamol
oatmeal raisin bars for snacking 
chapstick
sunscreen
small travel size pack of wet wipes

Charger and spare charger
Plug
4 hour portable charger (essential!)

purse + spare cash
sunglasses
HATS!!!


And that's all before you get to clothes and bedding that we needed to have with us!
I packed clothes very minimally! 


All in all I was pleased with the equipment I took with me. Very happy with the limited(ish) palette. I found I could mix all the colour I needed other than a really vivid orange.
I discovered that one large painting per day is my limit so I will reduce the number of large panels I take and maybe take some smaller ones to do oil sketches. 

I will post some of my work next....!


EDIT
Adding the following notes;
for travelling take travel size toiletries to save on weight; shampoo, conditioner, toothpaste, anti-perspirant.
Don't forget glasses and contact lenses!