The Most Portable Pastel Kit Ever!

'Santa Comes to St. Thomas'         5x7           pastel         ©Karen Margulis

I am headed back to the Caribbean!  I am taking a girls Pre-Christmas Cruise with my Mom, sister and daughter.  All I want to do is relax! I have a pile of books to read and my new GoPro camera to play with.  I wasn't even going to take any pastels.  I know.... I have the Gogh Box. I have my small kit that I took on my Southwest trip.  But I thought it would be a good thing to just take my sketch book and just take pictures, sketch and observe.  A Painting Break might not be a bad thing.  And I may do it.

But just in case I got an overwhelming urge to paint I need to have some supplies!

So I put together my smallest pastel kit ever.  If you saw my Black Friday Haul video yesterday then you got a sneak peek at my kit.  Here is is below. Let me describe what I did:

Everything I need to paint small pastel paintings (5x7 or less) fit nicely in this soft-sided Bible cover.  This is a zippered book cover that measures 8x10 and has two outside pockets. Oh and it is even reversible!  I paid $8 for the cover. 

To outfit the kit I filled a small Terry Ludwig pastel box with a selection of pastel pieces. I wanted an assortment of darks and lights and then filled in with middle values.  I really needed a bit more space for some Nupastels and charcoal so I filled up a small 4x4" box.  I made sure the boxes had two layers of foam and I used rubber bands to keep the lids secure.  It is important that you can't hear the pastels move when you shake the box. Here are some of the other supplies I fit in the kit:

• My backing board which is a piece of 5x7 foam core that I put in a Clearbag for protection.

• A small bulldog clip to clip the paper to my board.

• baby wipes...travel size

• A small notepad to slip the finished paintings into....I happened to find a nice travel themed plastic coated notepad!  I am using a binder clip to keep it closed so the paintings won't fall out.

• A selection of papers. I am going to paint minis....2.5x3.5  but paper up to 5x7 will fit in this kit.

• A small watercolor kit (in a pill case) and a water brush.

my pastels

The kit all zippered up and ready to travel!

I love this little kit. It will fit in my backpack and my beach bag so if I really need to paint I can.  Just know it is there should be enough to keep me from having withdrawal. But it is so cut I may just have to use it!

While I am away I have prepared some of my favorite posts from 2013. Internet on a ship is slow and expensive so I will do my best to get the posts published but if you don't hear from me I'll be back online on December 22!