Tomorrow I fly from the mid-west over to Portland, Oregon and I am a combination of nervous (don’t travel by myself much) and super excited!

I am meeting some of the wonderful ladies from the Get Messy Art Journal community who I have got to know over the inter webs and I am thrilled to be meeting them in person this weekend.

As we are gathering to make art as well as see some of Portland and eat good food, I am taking a selection of art supplies and sketchbooks.

How to decide!?

Airline regulations help somewhat as I am not checking a bag so I have to abide by the liquid/gel rules so I am not taking any acrylic paints or inks.  I am sure I could take a small amount but I don’t want to risk losing them.

So I thought I would make a new watercolour set and team it up with a selection of pens, brushes , a water brush, some Inktense pencils, a glue stick and some hair bobbles!

I stuck to fairly neutral pen and pencil colours – greys, black, white and blues so that I can use the watercolors as my colour option.  I am hoping that by restricting my stuff I will make myself do more sketching and drawing and take my time over them.

My sketchbook is full of hot and cold press watercolour paper and bound in an old children’s book cover.  I also have my trusty mini accordion binder full of a variety of papers.

I started the daily challenge over at Creative Bug this week which is taught by Lisa Congdon and is an ink based daily sketch running alongside Inktober.  Lisa recommended Shizen paper which I had never heard of but after some research, I though looked interesting so I ordered a pile and it is fabulous.  Very textured which I don’t always love but I think I like this paper because it is way more textured than cold press watercolour paper and nice and thick.  It will come as no surprise that I stuffed a handful of Shizen paper into my bag too.

All set!

Now I just have to look forward to getting up at the butt crack of dawn tomorrow morning and be on my way. Don’t ask me what time I have to get up, I don’t want to talk about it! Ha.

Happy Thursday x