Tips for Travelling Artists

A good friend of mine has just returned from a trip to the Far East.  Not wanting to fall foul of airline baggage rules, he travelled out with his painting kit but no turps or white spirit. To help him buy some locally, he had translated the words for white spirit and paint thinner via the internet before he went.

After a long trawl through many shops, he was eventually offered a bottle of strange smelling liquid and off he went to do some painting.  Setting up in front of his chosen view, he carefully set out his paints on the palette and decanted some of his newly aquired “white spirit”. 

As he began to lay in the first washes of colour a strange thing started to happen.  The paint curdled then bubbled and eventually started to eat through the gesso priming of his board. Then it dawned on him – he was mixing his colours with paint stripper!

To save him from embarrassment, I won’t name him (yet!) but if you would like to share your tips for successful travelling with oil paints – or even share a few of your own disaster stories – please email me or leave a comment.

1 thought on “Tips for Travelling Artists”

  1. Befriend local artists! If you can find a good shop, they most likely carry European brands. The art teacher at my high school here (Japan) pointed me in the right direction ~

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