If I make 5 kg of art this year, is that enough?
An upper limit on art making
This year, I know what the maximum weight of art I will be making is - it will be 5 kilograms.
That’s all the supports, pigments and tools i have for the period of April to December.
I have moved to Timor-Leste, (East Timor) with my husband, who is volunteering with a micro-finance company here. VSA organises all this, and sponsors us to be here.
They let us bring one large suitcase to hold all the things, the things I will need not only for art making, but quite a lot of everything else too.
Timor-Leste is remote, and poor. There are no shops that sell things like light-fast paint or acid free paper.
What to pack?
I won’t be able to order things online here, because the there is no postal service. So anything I order simply won’t arrive.
I have one chance to get it right, and pack everything I think I might use to make art for seven months.
And I have to pack everything else I need or want that won’t be able to buy in Timor-Leste, too. Which is quite a lot (a huge medical pack, all my shoes and clothes etc etc) - about 25kg worth so that leaves 5kg of my 30kg for art materials.
The paper is the hardest, the heaviest.
I brought 200 sheets of A4 200gsm good drawing paper. I can fold it in half and bind it up into a nice little sketchbook, or use a whole sheet for a drawing.
But, oh, how I wish I had also brought another 200 sheets of good 125gsm paper too! I haven’t been able to use a single sheet of my acid free paper because the scarcity paralyses me.
When I go to make a drawing, I have to have the freedom to not care if it is a very bad drawing.
I don’t know how many bad drawings other artists make before the good drawings come out, but I know have to make a lot of really bad drawings!
That means having enough paper.
Enough paper to try something, see it not work out, pick up another piece of paper and try something else, and feel absolutely no sting of regret.
I’ve trained myself pretty well now to release all judgement of my bad drawings. If something looks awful, I know (after a long time of working through all this!) not to make a bad drawing mean I am a bad artist, that a bad drawing is just a piece of paper with an experiment on it, and the experiment failed. A bad drawing is just a data point, information about how one thing is not working right now.
I’ve trained myself to acknowledge I haven’t lost anything by making a bad drawing, I have gained something - all I have lost is a piece of paper.
Now, losing that piece of paper is a big problem!
Now, when I get out a piece of my precious acid free paper and make the inevitable bad drawing, I will only have 199 other chances to make a good drawing. It doesn’t seem like enough!
Pigments
Fortunately water colours are by nature extremely concentrated materials. I have worked out a good palette for myself, but I throw in a good number of extra tubes too, they are not heavy.
But I also am read to try a new medium, one that will work well with traveling.
I land on coloured pencils, which I haven’t used since I was about 11 years old. I am instantly happy - the soft gentle stroking of pencil on paper is so soothing.
Coloured pencils are so forgiving too! One works so lightly that the mistakes are tiny delicate little things, they hardly seem to aggravate me at all.
Art about what?
So now, in response to both the new medium of coloured pencils and the paper limit, I am doing deliberate practice, basic exercises, using the pencils in locally available available low quality sketchbooks.
And when I have done ‘enough’ of this sort of practice, I can get out my good paper and do the ‘real’ drawings.
It’s the exact opposite of my usual way of working, where I put everything into eliminating the difference between the ‘practice’ work and the ‘real’ work - now I am stiffening and formalizing the boundaries between those two things instead. It feels very odd.
Most artists I know find it helps them to feel free to respond to fleeting ideas about new colours (or anything) when they are surrounded by an abundance of materials. I don’t think I know any artists who are minimal with their gear, even if their art itself is pretty minimalist.
How long could you last without an art supply shop? I adore them and miss not being able to soak up all the beautiful supplies. I’m hoping I can make it to 7 months (and still actually make the art), otherwise it is a US$800 trip over the border to Indonesia for a very serious shopping trip!
I’m just now thinking what I would do in a similar situation. It’s not easy. It makes me wonder if taking a tube of while acrylic gouache could work - then one can paint a white layer over any bad drawings and at least draw again with coloured pencils. Coloured pencils work quite well on top of acrylic gouache.
This is quite a fascinating experiment! I would probably just bring a whole lot of mechanical pencil lead and paper. I do most of my work just by pencil, and I seldom actually ruin a piece of paper but that's because I approach each one with the delicacy one might apply to disarm a ticking bomb.