Plein Air Equipment by Rachael McCampbell

[Music] hmm [Music] hi i'm rachel mccampbell welcome to mccampbell art studio and the imperfect painter and today i'm here to talk to you about plein air painting and my gear so i want to share with you what works for me i purchased a red rock backpack and a large one and i'll have all this information below so don't worry about me getting everything perfectly right in my description right here because i'm going to have links and everything down below to make it easy for you to find okay but this is redrock and i like this because it's not too big not too small has a lot of pockets it really holds everything so let's talk first about the pochade box that i purchased i bought a new wave hugo and i like it a lot because it's very trim it's almost like carrying a macbook pro and i just like the feel of it i like the magnetic technology of it it's just easy and slick i like it so i'm going to show that to you and so we'll begin with the tripod for that and that's here i like this tripod because it has this technology that flips up it's really great and it has these little lock-ins where you can just push the lock to make go either that way or whatever it has a little lock system here and you just simply push that in and now you're locked in like that and then of course it goes up to some nice heights here your head can move around and you can angle it whichever direction you want which is really great so let's set that there let's see what we have lots of things now i packed probably everything and the kitchen sink so you may want to pack less so let's look here so here is the pochade box and this is what i was saying it's it's very slick small this is a glass insert in here right now they also come with an acrylic one but i went ahead and got a glass one just because i prefer it so we'll get into this in a minute and these are the little parts that go with it okay so i had removed the part that attaches to the tripod so i'm going to screw that back in and this fits with any kind of tripod so you don't have to buy their tripod i just did because i like the the way it folds up and certain parts of the technology but you can this will fit with the universal tripod fitting like that so you just screw that in and then you make sure that is loose right here and you set it on there and then you tighten and voila it's on there of course i have it wobbly here so i'm going to tighten this up and lower that so you can see it a little better these are the little side trays that you can get and i really like this the again they attach with magnets here so you just attach this to there voila attaches to the magnets and then this attaches onto there same on this side i'm going to turn this down so you can see it now depending on if you like to paint with a flat panel or something that is like a canvas that's 7 8 of an inch deep in profile they have two choices for you so for example this is for the canvas and it's deeper and you can put the base on there and then the top part goes there and adjusts to different heights there and then for the panels they have a standard size like this and it can go up to a certain height there so that's really nice or you can get an extension and this can make it where you have a very large panel indeed see so we will go with this one for today we will get into this a little bit more but i also want to show you an umbrella that i bought more than shading you it's about shading your art because when you're painting is in full glare of the sun let me tell you it's it's really hard to see what you're painting what's going on there so let's look at this one this is by artwork essentials and they have a lot of different types of things you may be interested in but i like this umbrella it's pretty simple design and you can attach it to pretty much any tripod you just go down here standard fittings and you can attach it depending on which direction the sun is you can put it on a different leg you can move it around and as you work of course the sun is going to change direction all day long so if you want this behind you you just put it on this leg and it'll go you know angle whatever direction you want or when you have your panel and you want to take it home with you in your backpack but it is sopping wet with oil what do you do so i really like this company panel pack because they make this really lightweight i think it's balsa wood and it's panelpak.com again i'll have all that information for you but it basically has these little rubber bands that you take off and here's your panel so you can have two panels per pack and they come in all different sizes so these are 12 by 16 panels and they fit in like that and you just face them toward each other and there's enough room in there where the paint won't touch and then you wrap it around it's super lightweight it can go in your luggage and your backpack so it's great and then while we're on that topic i also bought a larger one that is 16 by 20 and it's too big of course to fit in my backpack but let's say i wanted to do a really large piece and this will fit in my luggage so i just bought this the same deal opens up same way and then i just took a strap off of one of my old computer bags and i attached that so now i can walk around with my wet art easy peasy all right let's go through some of the essentials okay now another thing that comes with the new wave is some of these large types of rubber bands that will hold your brushes down or hold things down on a windy day or you can tie it this direction whatever you want but these are very handy i've got my water bottle and i've got this these little ties too that work well you can get them different sizes they're just great to tie on to your bag in different locations if you need to tie something on as are these little carabiners that hold things all in these little pockets see all these are little not pockets but little things where you can slide something through little spaces and then tie something on that way so these are excellent for carrying lots of different types of gear i have a used paper towel that's kind of doesn't have too many left on it or you can just fold up some paper towels tear them off and put them in a little ziploc bag and have them ready to go so i have my little brush cleaner here this is a really small brush cleaner and there is a little hook down here at the bottom right here that will hold that really nicely and then you can just wash your brushes not worry about it and then when you're ready to go you keep it on the outside of your backpack just in case there's any spillage but these things lock up like fort knox they're awesome and then then you can you know keep that safe okay let's see what i have in here oh i have necessary bug spray definitely especially in the southeast i like to paint with a little squeegee sometimes just to wipe and do things and so there's a little squeegee here are these little ramekin type things by gorilla and i like these because you can put your medium and your gamsol in here and they screw on and there's a little rubber lid on there to make sure this doesn't leak so those are really nice now they have a clip for a palette if you're clipping on but you know i don't i'm not holding a palette or anything so you can either put it on here you can put it on your little rubber band to hold it down you know however you want to of course this is angled and everything but if it's straight up that would stay on there or you can just do that and you've got your mediums i always carry a bunch of gloves in a ziploc bag so i can put them back into the ziploc bag later some block gotta have that a hat wear your hat and also you want to wear dark clothes you don't want to wear a white shirt because it's going to reflect up in your eyes and onto your painting and like this hat is not great for coverage but i knew i was going to be in the shade so this is mainly to help with my eyes so i don't have to wear sunglasses and it also just helps it where the sun is not too bright bouncing off onto my eyes these are little plastic razor blades that come with the new wave hugo and i love these things because they scrape your paint off at the end of the day wipe it on a paper towel and it's just great great for clean up without scratching anything and also last week i painted with this and there is room here when you remove these and there is room and space here when i shut this no paint got on this it was pretty amazing i mean i didn't have piles of paint either but no paint got on this i was able to shut it and let it sit for a day and it sealed it in i came back in opened it up started painting again so that's really nice about these spaces i have my brushes and this is a really easy i like this by heritage it just holds your brushes and then you can set it on the ground or wherever and you just tighten this and it creates a prop you know props everything up for your brushes i have a little piece of equipment that attaches to your tripod leg that will hold brushes but i find it a little awkward to get to i just it doesn't work for me so i like this because i can see everything i can grab two or three brushes and hold them during my painting session and then as far as brushes go so what i've got here is i've got some vine charcoal in case i want to draw in i've got a fan brush i have this is a filbert da vinci grigio and that's a number ten then i have a number eight in the same brand and uh style and then number four and then i have a da vinci black sable round and you know they just give you different effects when you're painting and some people like to use only hogs hair bristle brushes when they paint plein air these right here actually da vinci's plain air brushes that do do that there but they're still soft they're very soft but they give that firmer hogs hair feel this one as well so you've got a round a flat and a filbert of those and then i just like to have a few other things this is just a little cheap old brush that's a flat brush this is just a chip brush in case i need to do something quick to tone the canvas this again is a davinci maestro six and i like this brush a lot it's firm yet it covers some ground too because it's it's pretty large and this is a little old angle brush you can see it's very old and it serves a good purpose at times and let's see this is just like a little signature brush this is a dynasty black gold little brush very nice little synthetic and this is a da vinci brush that is really long and thin it's it's also great for doing grasses and things like that and i'll have all these on my website and this is just a skewer you know for barbecuing you know sticking uh peppers and onions on and things like that you get at the grocery store but it's got a really sharp point and it's great to go back through and scratch through so these are some of the tools i might take out to plein air paint and then how do i carry my paints well i have a lot of paints and you may not want to take this many and we'll talk about your basics to take and what you might want to take just for fun so my backpack when i weighed it it was around 25 pounds and i could lighten that definitely by removing some of this paint this is the heaviest thing in my backpack and of course you fill it your water bottle up i mean it all adds up so you've got to add it up and see what you're comfortable walking with now when we're going to ghost ranch this fall we are not going to be going on long hikes but it's enough to where you want to have your gear and all together in one spot and you want it to be comfortable so i just want to remind everyone about weight but this is a fishing box and i love this it's waterproof not that you really need that but it is i have some gal kid light by gamblin and this is a really nice medium and i have these little sample things that are great for carrying so you would have to get the safety data sheets which i'll have for you on a pdf and you can print those out and you put them in with your paints to and you highlight where the flashpoint information is and that way if someone does open it in tsa they will see that and i've never had my paints taken in europe or where i've traveled in the u.s with them so can't guarantee it but hopefully they will not take it and gambling are vegetable oil-based paints on here and and that will also help them understand that they are not flammable and you can actually take gamsol which is odorless mineral spirits on the plane just make sure you have that safety data sheet really well highlighted there regarding the flash point um i also have some gauked gel there is the solvent-free galco gel which is excellent to carry on a trip of course i'm here in tennessee right now so i was just using the galco gel but just know that gambling makes a solvent free galco gel it's wonderful because it helps your painting dry faster and it also gives a beautiful luster to your art so and it's also in a tube form and it's not wet it's not spilling you can set it on your palette it stays there it's just great for planner painting i also have a viewfinder now some people find these handy some people just like to use their phones and that works too you can just hold your phone up and you can crop your scene and look at it use your sketchbook to draw your scene out but this is kind of nice because it has on here marked some of the standard painting sizes and and you can then see oh you know what the proportion would be compared to your canvas you're carrying for example this is 8 by 12 and this is 9 by 12 and that is 11 by 14. so depending on which type of canvas panel you have that would help you crop your scene and then i have a pocket color wheel that i just like to carry because it just helps me remember some color combinations and if i'm going to go with a warm palette or a cool palette so you may want a little pocket color wheel i have a little sketch pad and you can have any kind of small sketch pad you want and then i like to kind of draw my plan out really quickly and i have three little markers by copic and one is an n2 which is very pale and there is an n5 which is the medium gray and then this one is an n10 which gives you that dark so it just gives you light medium and dark to try to plan out where your darks and lights are going to go in your piece i have a little piece of rope not sure why i need that but in case i need to hang something from a limb or who knows i keep that and in here i have some more of those little ties again and i and i get the ones that are really really bright orange because you know when they fall in the grass and they're black or green you can't find them so these really stand out also clips these little clips they come in handy when you need to clip something onto your bag or to clip something shut if something breaks and you need to hold something or let's say you need to clip your reference up here maybe you have a reference photo you want to look at so these are just handy little clips or maybe there's strong wind you need some extra clip you know there are a few more of these rubber bands and carabiners these came with the new wave these stretch across and hold your pochade box shut if you need to make sure it's going to be shut i mean the magnets keep it shut but just in case there's more of these this is a duct tape that i've just rolled on a piece of plastic you never know when you might need duct tape this is some gamsol i have here and some more gauked light i just have extra and an allen wrench in case you need to tighten something up these are also by panel pack i just love these you can set them anywhere and let's say you're you're working on two or three canvases at one time you may want to just set them here to dry and you just set that down and it holds them up and they're very inexpensive or let's say you go back to your hotel room and you want to have your canvases dry and this is a great way to do that now you don't have to bring them in your plein air kit i just brought them down to show you let's say you don't want to buy a pochade box and all that goes with that and you are on a very low budget you may want to just get a very lightweight aluminum tripod easel and this is by dick blick and i think they're around thirty dollars so you could set that on a table or you know extend the legs for going out of doors there you have it and you can have a large panel and this is deep enough for a very deep even a cradle panel this is deep enough for that it's like you could get probably an inch maybe a little over an inch in depth on this so that's really nice and very lightweight now you go another thing you might want to have is a camping chair these are really cheap you can get them at rei and other places and they're great you know to sit on but also let's say if you are taking this type of setup and you don't have a pallet you can just set that there let's say this is your palette that you're painting with well not there here so let's say you're painting here and you want to rest it and have some water you know you put that there you can clip on things for brushes here it has a little bit of a velcro thing here that you can hang your paper towels or your trash from these little holes you could if there was something you wanted to hang or you know there are these ties you could use so you can use this for different you know in a really functional way you just don't have this palette and set up here so that's a personal choice about how you want to do your pochade boxes i also have a gorilla pochade box which i did not bring down it would also fit into this tripod and it has its own tripod but um it has a box in there and that's to put your paints or whatever but i have found for traveling it's a lot of extra weight and that i don't even end up in volume that with that box that i don't even end up using so um i don't know that's just a personal choice for me and it also didn't have the extension where i could paint larger and deeper if i wanted to so that's how i like to work so you may find these little tiny pochade boxes work great for you so check them all out and see see what resonates with you and i want to show you another really cool feature of this hugo new wave art hugo is that you can pop this off and pull your palette out for easy cleaning and to move around and like i said this one is a gray glass palette which i love but for lighter weight and traveling it comes with a white acrylic palette that's much more lightweight and you clean it pop it back in there you go you can set your brushes here if you'd like while you're painting so you can take a bungee cord for example drop it through your paper towel and then take it over here and attach it to a hook or something else and now you have your paper towels ready to go so another thing you want to have is a garbage bag and you can just clip that here like that and you have your garbage bag as far as the panels the painting panels go now that's a lot of personal preference the size you like to do some people like to only do 8 by 10 inch that's too small for me i'm just not a good tiny painter so i like to go with 12 by 16 or higher so it depends on what you like to do and these are nice these are these are by masterpiece hardcore pro panels and i have some other ones that i like too and i'm going to list those all on the list below and you can look through read the description see what resonates with you and know that with these panels they can pop into a frame if you like that look or they could be mounted onto a thick cradled panel and then just hung on the wall without a frame as well or there are ways to put something on the back of these to where they are kind of float framing against the wall without a frame they're just floating on the wall so there are lots of choices here and that i cannot make for you but if you research it and look into buying some of these buy one of a bunch of different kinds paint with them and see what works with you every painter is different is what i find so i hope this helped you today i hope that you will get outside and enjoy the beautiful nature and paint it's it's not scary it's really not that hard to do it takes a few minutes to set up as you saw and then you just start painting and then you break it down it's not that hard i know people get intimidated by it but seriously it's it's once you have your equipment and place to put it it's it's easy to go you're good to go you

Channel: McCampbell Art Studio

Views: 11,963

Keywords: Nashville artists, Rachael McCampbell, Art is fun, Paint for fun, Plein air painting, Plein air equipment, Painting Plein Air, En Plein Air, Southern Artist, Artist equipment, art supplies, Da Vinci brushes, NewWave Art, U.Go Pochade boxes, Gamblin oil colors, the imperfect painter, paint outside, How to paint outside, Equipment for plein air painting, En plein air, Art supplies for painting outside, Franklin TN artists, Leiper's Fork Artists, Landscape painting, Artist

Id: 2N8qADNdSO8

Length: 28min 50sec (1730 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 17 2021