Creativity and Innovation

It is July and that time of year when I take a group of women on a 4 day canoe trip. This year was going to be a trip to Killarney Provincial Park but, it seems, Killarney is a very popular back country destination in summer. We were unable to get sites so we had to adjust our plans. We will be going back to that beautiful Provincial Park, Algonquin again.

Each time we go on this trip, I bring some art gear along and each year I try to streamline it and make it as small as I possibly can but still be able to produce something lovely with it. If you have to portage and carry all your equipment and clothing as well as a canoe, you want to have just enough stuff but not too much and it needs to be fairly light. For example, the stove I bring fits into a 5"X 7" pouch! And we do all our meals on it.

So when I saw a link on Facebook on how to make a paint kit out of an "Altoids" container, I thought this was the perfect solution for my canoe trip.

All my art gear fits into a 7"X 8" zippered freezer bag. It is clear so I can see everything that is in it.

The items include a small sketchbook and another small sketchbook that is long and narrow for landscapes, a uniball pen, a mechanical pencil, a watercolour kit and a waterbrush.

The watercolour kit is a variation on the "Altoids" container kit.

It is a container I found among my stuff and apparently it used to hold "10 sinoritas". I believe those were tiny cigars made for women smokers. They were made in Holland and were called Uiltje D'or or in English Golden Owls. The brown label on the lid is evidence that this little tin was used for something else after the cigars were gone. It says, "veilig hieds spelden" which is Dutch for safety pins. I think this tin may be considered an antique now.

I found some used bubble packaging for pills and glued them to the bottom of the tin then squeezed watercolour paint into them. Seeing as you can make almost any colour out of the primary colours yellow, red and blue, I included those but also added burnt sienna, yellow ochre, paynes grey and viridian green. I put a small piece of white felt in the top to clean off my brush on. The tin is only 2.75" X 3.75" in size.

The last item I included in the kit is a water brush which has a reservoir for water in the handle so you don't need a container of water with you.

I hope to paint many lovely sketches on this canoe trip as well as photographing lots of inspiration for future art.