
Students at Flying W Ranch.

Plein air workshop in Chase Co. Kansas.
Supplies that are needed for painting outdoors no matter which media you
choose.
Clothing: The workshop will be held rain or shine! This means you
should be prepared to paint in a variety of weather. Wear layers so you
can add or shed as you need. Clothing should be neutral-colored
because bright color or white reflects onto your canvas, influencing
colors in your painting. Wear a long-sleeved paint shirt to protect
arms and long pants because we may be in taller grass. Wear comfortable
hiking or jogging type shoes.
Sun and Heat Protection: Bring a brimmed hat and sun block to protect
yourself from the sun. A brimmed hat is also a necessity to protect
from glare while you’re painting. Sunglasses can’t be worn because they
change the way you see color. Bring plenty of water to keep hydrated.
Camp Wood will let us store water bottles in their refrigerator.
Bug Spray: Spray your pants, sleeves, and around the ground around your
feet to keep away mosquitoes, etc.
Field Easel: A pochade box on a tripod or a French easel will work
well. There are several field easel suppliers listed later in this
material. Make sure it is sturdy in wind, or you can weigh it down with
a bag of rocks or similar.
Backpack: A sturdy backpack with good shoulder straps large enough for
carrying water bottles, sunscreen, jacket, hat, brushes, paints,
sketchbook, etc. Ideally, you should be able to carry everything you
need in one trip to your location.
Umbrella: Not necessary, but helpful to keep the sun off your palette
and canvas. Also helps in rainy weather. Special artist umbrellas are
available to attach to an easel; or inexpensive, pliable C-clamp
umbrellas work too. Colored umbrellas should be painted inside with
gray spray paint so it doesn’t influence your color choices.
Paper towels, cotton rags, baby wipes: Keep plenty around to clean
brushes, pastels, and hands. Also have several plastic grocery bags
around to keep trash so you leave your location as you found it.
Viewfinder: Used to isolate a desired scene for painting. You can use
an empty 35mm slide mount or two L-shaped pieces of mat board paper
clipped together to form a rectangular opening. Cally uses the
ViewCatcher which is endorsed by Skip Whitcomb. The website for the
ViewCatcher is:
http://www.colorwheelco.com/viewcatcher/
Value Finder: A grayscale card with values from one to ten is also
helpful in the field. You can hold it up next to your scene to help
determine the value of an object. There is also a good value scale on
the Color Wheel website: http://www.colorwheelco.com under the
ViewCatcher menu button.
Sketch books: Keep a sketch book and pencils around to create thumbnail
sketches.
Rubber or latex gloves: Not necessary, but helps protect hands.
“Hazardous Waste” Buckets: Please be aware that you will be responsible
for carrying out your paint thinner, mineral spirits, or any other
hazardous waste. If you need to change out your brush washer often, we
recommend bringing another container to keep your waste.
Workshop Materials List - Pastel:
Pastels: If you are an experienced pastelist, bring your usual
palette. You should have at least 60 pastels in your palette and have
at least 3 values of each color family (red-orange: light, medium,
dark).
Here are some suggestions, going from hard to soft pastels. Generally,
the softer pastels are most expensive.
• A small selection of pastel pencils can be handy for adding detail.
• Hard Pastels: NuPastels, Faber-Castell, Holbein. Good for
sketching and adding sharply defined accents.
• Medium Pastels: Rembrandt, Girault, Art Spectrum, Winsor &
Newton, Daler-Rowney. Can be used for
entire painting, but can also take softer pastel over top. Dense
pigment, comes in a large range of colors.
• Soft Pastels: Schmincke, Great American, Unison, Sennelier, Diane
Townsend, Terry Ludwig. Rich in color
with buttery consistency that’s good for painterly work. The purest
pigment. Will fill your paper fastest.
Paper: Bring your paper of choice, enough to do 2-4 paintings per day
and (2) 6x8 sketches. Kim uses either Wallis or makes her own painting
surface (see below). If white, tone your paper with earth tones such as
burnt sienna, umber, or ochre. Here are some suggestions:
• Wallis sanded paper. In white or belgian grey. You can lightly
tone the paper with watercolor, acrylic,
alcohol or solvent based washes if desired.
• La Carte sanded paper. You can’t get it wet, but it comes in a
variety of colors.
• Art Spectrum comes in a variety of beautiful colors including some
very nice darks.
Make Your Own Painting Surface:
Make your own painting surface on museum board or illustration board.
Gesso both sides of the board several times to prevent warping. To make
a translucent ground, mix 3 parts acrylic matte medium (such as Golden
brand) to 3 parts very fine pumice dust to 2 parts water. Ground pumice
can be found at stores and online at Woodcraft, VanDykes, or other
companies specializing in wood finishing. You can experiment with the
amount of water used, but make sure there is enough binder (acrylic
medium) so when it’s dry, no powder comes off.
Using a large house painting brush, apply 2 to 3 layers of pumice
mixture on to your board, letting each one dry before you apply the
next. You can experiment with the direction you brush on the pumice
mixture. Kim typically puts on 3 layers in loose, diagonal strokes in
order to get a more spontaneous surface.
Other Tools: (*indicates required item)
*Drawing board; *artist’s tape or clips to hold paper to the board;
blending tools - cotton cloths, blending stumps, kneaded erasers,
paintbrushes; packing tape, bristle brushes, fine sand paper to take out
pastel or rough up surface; workable spray fixative/final spray
fixative.
Workshop Materials List - Oil:
Paints: If you are an experienced oil painter bring your usual palette.
Kim’s palette (Gamblin oil paints):
Cad Yellow Light, Cad Orange, Cad Red Light, Alizarin Permanent,
Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Cad Green, Sap Green, Viridian,
Transparent Earth Red, Titanium White
Brushes: An assortment of brights, flats, and filberts, No. 4, 6, 8,
10, and 12, in a soft synthetic (sabline) and/or bristle. Good brands
are the Ruby Satin line of Silver Brushes, Utrecht 300-B Finest, and
Utrecht 209 series bristle. The Silver brushes you can order from
Jerry’s Artarama. The Utrecht brushes can be found at Utrecht in Kansas
City or on their website.
Painting Panels: Bring panels ranging in size from 8x10 to 12x16. Plan
on enough panels to do 2-4 paintings per day. For field work,
pre-primed (oil or acrylic) medium tooth canvas or linen mounted to
hardboard, gatorboard or plywood works well. You may also use your
favorite panels or stretched canvas if you prefer. I caution against
using the chip board backed panels because they can eventually warp.
Pre-tone your canvas with a transparent wash of cad. red light, burnt
sienna, umber, ochre or other warm color.
Palette: A palette can sit inside the pochade box or easel, or you can
bring a hand-held palette. Paper palettes are discouraged because they
are too flimsy for outdoors and soak up oil paints.
Brush Cleaning Solution: Use odorless mineral spirits such a Gamosol’s.
Misc.: Portable brush washer to hang from easel, palette knives, and
wooden, plastic or cardboard wet canvas carrier boxes.

Students at Chase Fishing Lake.

Studio workshop in Wichita, KS.