Packing for a Painting Trip to Ireland

I’m very excited to report that I’m on my way to Ireland for a long-awaited painting trip. What with COVID and various other things it’s been a while since I’ve been able to do something like this.

I’ll be in the beautiful County Kerry, and it’ll be a solo trip so I can concentrate completely on capturing this amazing landscape in drawings and paintings. I’m staying near the Atlantic coast, and so looking forward to spending time there, responding to the changing light and weather over the sea and hills. And recharging my artistic batteries of course!

I’ve been to the same area before but don’t know it very well, so I’ll be thinking about adapting to a different terrain and looking at how that might change my palette.

As you can imagine, a trip like this requires LOADS of art equipment so I’ve been spending a lot of time making lists, preparing and packing. I’m bringing my drawing bag with watercolours, inks, water-soluble sticks, pencil, and charcoal, plus lots of sketchbooks of different sizes. I’ll take my oil paints of course, but also some acrylics and water-soluble oils to play with – plus some oil bars which I haven’t used for a while.

I’ll need quite a few canvases and panels, in pairs of sizes to make it easier to bring back wet paintings. I’ve recently discovered a genius hack which involves slices of cardboard loo roll used at the corners of the two wet paintings to separate them with (hopefully) minimal damage to the painting itself.

I always find I need to take lots of odd bits and pieces – old newspapers, kitchen roll, bulldog clips, wipes, and jam jars. And I’m definitely going to need my wet weather gear – wellies, anorak, waterproof trousers and woolly hat.

I’m so looking forward to seeing what comes out of my trip and posting the results. I’ll share a round-up when I get back (be sure to sign up to my newsletter) and I’ll be posting regular updates and images on Instagram and Facebook while I’m away.

Sláinte!
Louise