Long road trips make me crazy. I can’t get anything accomplished. I’d much rather be painting! So for our 4-hour trip to Ellensberg (for the Renewable Energy Roundup Art Show) I rigged up a little watercolor lap painting set-up.

My lap painting set-up

Allan drove, so I could concentrate on making sure my water cups didn’t jiggle over as we crossed Snoqualmie Pass with its patches of potholed roadway that had been torn up by chained-up semi trucks last winter.

I’d been thinking about putting together a little watercolor carryall for a while, and even ordered some transparent Winsor & Newtwon half pan watercolors: Indian Yellow, Raw Sienna and Permanent Magenta. They arrived just in time for our trip. I also ordered Winsor Red and Aureolin but those colors must be in short supply. The only online art supply that carried them was Creative-Coldsnow, and they had to be backordered.

My setup is easy, just an old towel, a filled water bottle, paper towels and kleenex in a zip lock bag, the Winsor & Newton travel set I bought a couple years ago with the new half pan colors. This is the same watercolor set I used for my Santa Fe paintings. The paper is a 4 x 6 postcard block of watercolor paper; the cheap kind. I just put the towel over my legs, add some water to the cups, and start painting whatever comes into my head.

Dumping the dirty water was a problem, because hanging my arm out the window to tip it out resulted in it flying right back into the car, or if I tipped my arm back, splashed all over the back window! So I just dumped it into another empty water bottle and threw that away later.

These three little paintings aren’t much to look at, but doing them passed the time quickly, I could chat with yours truly while I painted (as opposed to burying my head in a book), and I felt like I was accomplishing something, if only practicing with my watercolors. The floral is just made up, the other two are scenes from Snoqualmie Pass that I tried to cement in my mind when I saw them, then recreate from memory.

Abstract Floral Design, 4 x 6

Skyscape over Snoqualmie Pass

Scene from Snoqualmie Pass