After experiencing some success with plein air drawing (as detailed in the tree-drawing post), I was consumed by my own hubris and set out to assemble a field painting kit. This is a well-tread road, but I wanted something small enough to stuff into a backpack or fanny pack.

I cobbled together a kit with a mint tin palette and a small tupperware container for water. These are attached directly to the book with magnets: I used a pair of small neodymium magnets for the water container and a magnetic metal clip for the palette. This setup has been working out really well, even in situations where I'm sitting on the ground or somewhere similarly uneven. It's not great for standing work, though, since the water needs to stay perpendicular to the ground.

I love tiny palettes. They're the type of thing that I see and swear I'm going to do [x] (paint) more because I have [y] (a tiny paint palette). I thought really hard about getting a fancy small wooden palette (as seen in this tiny palette mega review by Leslie Stroz), but decided against it in favor of engineering one out of a mint tin. I also love putting random shit in mint tins. I already keep my small cross stitching projects in one (you would be shocked at the amount of embroidery floss you can stuff into one Altoids tin).

A few years ago, I got one of those carts everyone and their mom seems to have. I don't use it as a cart 99% of the time, but it's easier to move around than a shelf if I do need to move it. I recently got the impulse to consolidate most of my art supplies onto it for easy access, so I am here to share the results of that organization with you, the audience.

I got the cart on sale from a Store that sells Containers, but pretty much everyone is selling them nowadays. I didn't bedazzle or accessorize my cart at all, but there are also a bunch of different attachments and other junk you can hang off of your cart for maximum organization. Or you can just be like me and stuff everything in there regardless of whether it wants to be stuffed.

I bought a Traveler's Notebook cover last year, mainly because they released an olive edition and I needed it. I liked the idea of a modular notebook, though, so I swore I would figure out how to use it. I continued liking the idea and doing absolutely nothing else with it for 6 months. But it's a new year with a corresponding new me, so here I am! Using it!

I will freely admit to dropping about 50 bucks on the cover and having no regrets about it at all, but a lot of the other stuff that Traveler's Company sells is overpriced. Some of their accessories are fine things that someone less frugal would probably be happy with, but others are garbage. I don't want to play roulette with garbage, so I've hacked together the stuff I have inside my notebook with some success.

I made some needleminders with some unused enamel pins (from Fossil Forager) I had lying around. This is entirely as simple as it sounds: you pull the pointy part off and superglue a magnet on. If you're working with a magnetic pin, you'll have to stick magnets to both sides to stick a needle onto the front. (Not great for aesthetics, but I don't care about that!)

I don't have much use for pins, but the magnets don't compromise wearability, so you could still use pins that you've converted in this way. If anything, the magnets are probably beneficial since neodymium magnets are ludicrously sticky.