travel paints

In preparation for our trip, I've been pulling together travel

watercolor pallets for myself and the kids. This seems like the

most portable art option, although (popular to contrary belief)

watercolor is not a very kid-friendly medium. Here's why: 

kids are very straightforward about painting. They start big 

and add details later. This works fine if none of the details

are lighter than the main mass. But watercolor doesn't have

a lot of easy options for adding whites or light colors at the 

end. In fact, many watercolorists work backwords, saving the white

highlights at the beginning. This takes a good deal of planning...

or at least awareness. Also, if all the colors go on while the

initial round of painting is wet, watercolors tend to blend together

into a puddle of brown. So kids get frustrated with the colors 

coming out not nearly as clear and bright as they were in the box.

All that to say that I am baffled with our tendency to start 

children with watercolors. Let's go back to finger paints!! 

Okay, I'll hop down off my soap box now.

 Because, after all, I am toting a variety of adorable travel palettes

loaded full of juicy watercolor paints to dive into with my kids

on vacation. Hopefully I can teach them some techniques that will 

lead to satisfying outcomes in their travel journals. 

To get palettes set up, I had to figure out what pigments they already

contained. So I've had a delicious time painting color

swatches and comparing them to tube paints and friends' supplies.

Now the Art Basket is loaded up, as is the Summer-Enrichment-Program

Briefcase and the Making-Fabric-Flowers Bag. I'll share more about 

these soon! In the meantime, I'd better go pack some clothes....