Travel Art Kit

I get my best work done while I'm away from home. Unfortunately, I like using watercolor and it gets a bit messy. I could use watercolor pencils, and I do, but sometimes they don't quite do what I want them to.

An alternative to the messy and embarrassing fiasco of bringing all of your paints to your local coffee shop, you can make your own watercolor kit out of an Altoids tin.

I can't take credit for this brilliant idea. Here is the link to the Instructables Site where I found it. However, I will take credit for improving on it.

Supplies: Altoids tin, paper clay, acrylic varnish

Clean out the Altoids tin. Soap and water. Better to be safe than sorry since wet sugar can attract nasty critters.

Here is the improvement: Paper Clay.
Paper clay is made of volcanic ash, talc, water, starch, wood pulp, preservatives and fairy magic. This stuff doesn't require baking, yet it dries hard.

Mold the paper clay into little holes for your watercolor paint. I smoothed out the cups with the butt of a Sharpy marker. I only made eight. You could probably make ten, like the brilliant JP from instructables, but I lack the clay molding chops for that sort of endeavor.

Let the tin dry. I actually forgot about it for a few days and it dried quite nicely. Consult the package for the minimum drying requirements. If you live in a humid climate, I suggest trying my tactic.

After your watercolor tray is completely finished drying paint on several coats of acrylic varnish. I used three coats over several days. Again, consult the minimum dry-time instructions on the label of your product since most of you are probably not as absent-minded as I.

The next step is to simply fill the holes with your watercolor tubes. I used primary colors and burnt sienna plus its relatives. I figure this is a personal decision.

Now that you have your watercolor kit, you can always go back to Instructables to make the $1 Waterbrush. I however lost patience and bought an $8 waterbrush at my local art store.

Enjoy!