A Question and Answer with Sheila Thornton

What mediums do you take when you travel? Oils, watercolors, pastels, etc.? What equipment do you bring?

I usually stick to pencil, ink, watercolor, oils, and/or water soluble oils. There are four 'kits' that I take with me, in any combination, depending on where I am going and how long I plan to stay.

The first kit is what I carry with me in my purse everywhere I go. It consists of: a mechanical pencil, water brush, eraser, fountain pen with water soluble brown ink, and a small sketchbook. This allows me to quickly sketch with pencil, refine the image with the brown ink, and quickly brush in values with the water brush. Then after a few minutes, I can go back and erase any unwanted pencil once it has dried.

The second kit I will take in addition to the first kit for shorter trips lasting 1-2 weeks or less. It includes a small watercolor set, permanent fine line markers, a 6" x 8" sketchbook with thicker paper, and a blue 'shop' paper towel. Now I can add washes of color to my drawings done with pencil, fine line marker, or the water soluble ink.

The third kit is for when I plan on working outside in oils, making small 6" x 8" sketches. This is usually for domestic travel, since it is worrisome to fly internationally with oil paints. These paintings take anywhere from 1-3 hours to complete, so this trip will likely be specifically for doing several oil sketches. This is when I take my wonderful 'Belly River' Alla Prima Pochade box, lightweight tripod, 'survival items', and oil set, all contained in a small backpack. The oil set consists of oil paint, brushes, panels, Gamsol in a jar, paper towels, and a few plastic grocery bags for garbage and anything leaky. The 'survival items' include: a hat, sunglasses, sunscreen, insect repellent, water bottle, snacks, and iPod.

The fourth kit is what I take for international travel, and is what I took with me to the Philippines. It includes a handmade cardboard pochade box with wet-panel carrier, a small set of water-miscible oils, a plastic water jar, brushes, a painting rag, and gessoed cardboard panels. This set is lightweight, ideal for backpacking, and best of all, everything fits inside the box and weighs less than 5 pounds!

What preparations do you make for a trip?

For my international backpacking trips, usually just book my flight online, arrange for any visas, and book my first night's stay. I'll read about and study the countries to have an idea of the places I'd like to go and paint, but for me, independent travel is about flexibility and freedom, so I don't plan a schedule. I enjoy learning about a place and it's people and painting is a fulfilling way to engage in this wonderful process.

What are your favorite subjects to paint when traveling? What is the most difficult subject you have painted?

People are my favorite subject to paint. But while traveling, I enjoy painting landscapes more because it captures the sense of the place, and it is fun to get lost and explore! People are the most difficult to paint because it is unusual to find someone willing to sit long enough to paint them.

Has travel painting presented you with any particular troubles in regard to painting itself, whether it be completion, interruptions, finding materials, etc?

I'm usually good about finishing paintings, even if they are done quickly. And, I haven't had any problems finding materials because I take everything I need with me.

Sometimes it can be irritating if people want to talk to you excessively while you are painting. Or when throngs of kids crowd so close, you can't move your arms to paint! But those are of little concern in comparison to the excitement of painting. If I get too distracted, I quickly finish up and move on. There's no point in struggling with a situation, as this will show up in the painting!

The weather sometimes pose challenges. I've had a few paintings disintegrate on me, when monsoon rains began and dissolved the water soluble oils I had just painted. Also, strong wind and cold weather can cut short a day of outdoor painting. And probably one of the biggest nuisances for me in tropical climates is mosquitoes!

What are the major differences for you between studio painting and painting in open air?

With studio painting, I have all the comforts of home, control over working conditions, and a virtually limitless time frame for painting. Since I prefer to work from life, I generally will work on still life and portraiture in the studio, which is slower paced and meditative. With painting outside, there are many variables, such as the changing light, weather, and movement of people and things. For me, this makes painting out of doors a fast and engaging activity, full of possibilities.

Because of your Filipino ancestry did your experience remarkably differ when you began to paint in the Philippines for the first time compared to other places?

Yes, there was definitely a sentimental feeling I had while painting in the Philippines. Since it is my mother's homeland, and I have such a vast amount of family there, I never know who I could be related to, so I pretend they are all relatives, which makes it that much nicer.

A Brief Biography: Tom Laukkanen

Tom Laukkanen has been pursuing his art his entire life, and in the last decade he has traveled through a wide swath of the United States with paint supplies stowed in easy reach. He has painted in the Southwestern States of Utah, New Mexico, and Arizona; in Ohio, New York, and Ontario, Canada; along the Missouri River in Montana; prairies in South Dakota; and an array of landscapes and climates in his home state of Minneosta. Tom frequently paints portraits of individuals interwoven into his life.

I had the opportunity of interviewing Tom recently and excerpts from some of that discussion are posted below.

A Questin and Answer with Tom Laukkanen

The following interview was recorded between painter Tom Laukkanen and David Frank on 21 January, 2009. Tom resides in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA.

I’m curious about the first, I guess you could say, sparks that ignited your interest to begin putting paint on canvas?

My dad being an art teacher, he brought home markers all the time, so he would give me a blank tablet of paper to do whatever I wanted on. The first memory I have of painting, my dad and I went out in the back yard and sat on our picnic table facing our neighbors house, and we did a watercolor of an apple and crabapple tree. As I did the painting, I remember looking to my dad for guidance and he would do the brushstroke, and I would emulate it. I don’t have that first painting, but I do remember the process, and I remember at one point my dad put a little red in for the apple trees and I said, "That doesn’t look like an apple." The apples were in full bloom at that point, and he said, "It doesn’t have to look like an apple." Then I remember taking the red paint and making the same stroke as my dad and thinking, "This is interesting."

It planted in my brain that there’s something else to putting down on the paper exactly what you perceive an apple to be. I wasn’t deep in thought about what that red stroke meant, but that was the first spark that really stirred something in me that I can’t explain. I try to capture that today in my work.

When did you first consider yourself to be an artist?

I always considered myself an artist from an early age. I always spent time drawing and throughout high school I spent an immense amount of time on it. In college the focus shifted onto the classroom setting and partying and all this...

Were you going to school for art at the time?

No, I thought it was something separate. I never even considered it. It was just something I did. I always had my paints with me in college, through unsuccessful attempts to finish paintings, I always kept it around. I think it was in my mid-to-late 20's that I remembered I was an artist. Not when I became, but I remembered it. It always stayed with me but was always put on the back-burner. It just became clear there was something missing in life that I always enjoyed, and it was art. It wasn’t always necessarily the end product but it was the production, the introspection involved in knowing yourself when able to do art, really figuring out what art meant to me and trying to strive towards that.

What was that void that developed and on what level does art reside now in your life?

It wasn’t a void. It was being lost; it wasn’t missing. It was just disorientation. I feel with my art I can become orientated with myself and strive for what’s better for myself and I can let go of those things and turn inward towards myself and figure what’s going on in my life, kind of like meditation. Then the void isn’t necessarily filled but it’s centered to a knowledge of what that void is. So when I act out towards other people, you know, in love or hate, I find that in my work I connect with those feelings and if I can express that inwardly I can come out of the experience being able to express that better outwardly towards other people in my everyday interactions because I’m not letting myself go. I’m not letting go of what’s important to me and that way I can relate better to what’s important to other people as well as myself. I know that feeling that void is just being disorientated for myself and other people.

Is this disorientation something you deal with, or feel, or sense quite a bit even since that time where you re-found your art, or is it something that once you grasp hold of it you have it locked firmly in your grasp? Or is it something more of a struggle?

It’s always a struggle. I find myself losing grip often with keeping things in the right perspective with how I want to live my life. I find that to be a constant. It’s not something I necessarily dwell on, but I know it’s there. There’s times when I’m caught up with work or other people, and I lose sight of the art and then it will call. It will call to me - I need to paint. It seems when I get back to painting and producing I connect with myself and therefore connect better with other people. It’s not necessarily something I always have a hold on, but it’s always within my grasp.

What mediums do you work in when you travel? And why do you work in those?

I started out working in acrylics. They have opacity and the coverage is great. If you make a mistake you can paint over it. Another thing is, it dries quick, since it’s water based. It’s clean. Unlike watercolor you can paint over mistakes.

I had two experiences with acrylics that were disappointing. One time I was in a real dense fog in Kelly Island State Park in Ohio. I felt like I was capturing things, and it was going great, and the fog turned into a light mist, and the painting had nearly everything washed off the canvas. In Arizona a year or two later: the weather was perfect, the sun was shining, 85 degrees, but it was so dry the minute my brush hit the canvas the paint was gumming up, and I couldn’t work with the product. It didn’t matter how much water I put in it. I talked to some people about it and decided I would start using oils.

The first time I used oils was in New Mexico. I brought both acrylics and oils along and some canvases I had borrowed. They were pre-ground in raw sienna, and I started painting over these ground canvases with my acrylics and apparently they had been ground in oil because my paint was beading up. I took out the oil and started working and haven’t looked back since. There are other difficulties - dry time is always a factor and it’s messy. But I can work in snow, I can work in a light mist. It’s never failed on me.

Where do you see your art progressing? What are your ambitions for your art? What challenges are you facing now?

My art will go wherever I go. We travel not only through space but through time. I think sometimes the word ‘travel painter’ speaks of someone traveling through space, but we forget we’re also traveling through time and whether I’m stuck in the same place, if I’m stuck here, time is still moving on, and my painting will follow. I paint the river bottoms near my house, and I paint the people in my life and the experiences that document my place in time and not just my space where I’ve been and where I’ve occupied, but the moments I’ve occupied. I hope my art follows me through time. That’s the one thing that’s constant. My space is forever changing because time doesn’t allow it to stay the same, it doesn’t allow me to stay the same. Whether I’m stuck in a studio, I think I’ll always be a travel painter because it’s time and space. Here I am, here it is. Here it was. That’s it. Hopefully I can keep it honest to myself and not try to dictate to other people what my art should be.

If other people can see something in it that connects with them, that’s great, but I’m not trying do anything but carry it with me. Sometimes I carry my art with me, and sometimes it carries me. It’s my magic carpet. It takes me through time and I take it.

A Brief Biograpy: Kathryn Stedham

Kathryn Stedham began nearly two decades ago exhibiting her work in the eastern United States. Since that time she has traveled extensively throughout the Orient: to Japan, South Korea, and China; to Cambodia and Thailand, where she was witness to the 2004 Asian Tsunami while painting along Tonsai Beach. Her paintings and monoprints have been displayed publicly and privately in the United States, Canada, and Japan.

Kathryn is currently the Executive Director at Spiro Arts in Park City, Utah. She helped build, both literally and more abstractly, the fledgling program from a century-old mining camp to a "state-of-the-art" residency for visual artists and writers. In the light of achievement, Kathryn humbly concedes the inclusiveness an "Executive Director" encompasses, which includes "office manager, pencil-sharpener, chauffeur, [and] maid." In 2008, the program provided seven artists residency to pursue their work.

Kathryn is soon to travel to Costa Rica and renew the role of a travel painter.

A Brief Biography: Michael Kluckner

Michael Kluckner is a Canadian writer and artist living in Katoomba, Australia. He has written a cycle of books over the course of 20 years detailing Vancouver and Canadian history, heritage, and culture. In 2007 he uprooted and began painting and chronicling a new landscape in Australia. He works in an array of different styles: Oils, watercolors, pencil sketches, woodcuts, and of course written word.

Michael began travel painting in a tour of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean in the winter of '92 - '93. Since then he has toured through Canada, the Pacific Coast States in the USA, Tasmania, Guadalajara, Turkey, Greece, Crete, and Germany with his paints and sketchbooks. He has an inordinary penchant for Volkswagen autos when traveling but makes ample use of his time walking and hiking the landscapes he records.

Below are a few questions Michael was kind enough to answer about his recent travels.

Q&A on recent trips with Michael Kluckner

1) Where was your last trip? Where are you going next?

The most recent trip that will lead to a web article on my Travel page, and maybe something in print later on, was to the Thompson River canyon in southern British Columbia in late May, 2008. I had an opportunity to do a raft trip down the river with the people at the Kumsheen Resort, but regardless I wanted to go back there to paint. It is such a challenging place, and although I first went there with a sketchbook in '93 I still don't feel I've got it right. The next trip? Brittany, with a nostalgic side trip to the Basque region of Spain, in September, where I first travelled when I was 20.

2) What is the longest trip you've taken? What trip do you feel was the most successful?

The longest trip was 3 months over the winter of '92-3 in the south of France and Italy. Probably the most successful one was in October-November of 2005 to Turkey, Crete, Greece and, finally, Heidelberg. There's a link to it on my travel page (above). There was an element almost of map-making in some of the pictures I did there, especially the pencil drawings, and pictures of people began to creep in again.

3) How many mediums do you take when you travel? Oils, watercolors, pastels, etc.?

I take a hand-made watercolour sketchbook, usually 10 x 11 inches (one-sixth of an Imperial sheet), a Moleskine book for pencil drawing, and a very small box of watercolours with one squirrel-mop brush and a spray bottle. We travel with carry-on bags so there's not a lot of room and I hate heavy stuff anyway. I don't "paint for the gallery" when I'm travelling -- the sketchbook itself, and digital files of the images suitable for publication, are the final use as far as I'm concerned.

4) What is the most resounding difference for you between working in open air and working in studio?

You get control indoors, especially of the moisture level of the paper, in return for which you have to remember the way the light danced when you were outside. So this little detail of a Heidelberg watercolour: the paper has to be just wet enough to blur the brushstrokes without losing them altogether. It's very difficult to achieve that outside, sitting on the ground on the edge of a trail in the sunshine, and maintain the moisture level so you get a consistency across the image. Yet it's not a bad combination: starting a picture outside to get the proportions and shadows and basic colours, then finishing it inside where the vagaries of memory force you to simplify.

A Travel Story from Peru by Nilton La Rosa

I think that is very exiting to see somebody coming from so faraway, just to do what he love. I meet Gregg in Pisco; we know each other for 4-5 years. It’s so cool to remember all the places we have visit in Peru and South America.

I was 16 years old when I first met him, I was sitting on a sofa in a Hostal and then he sat beside me; I was working as a tour seller, so the first thing I ask him was, where he come from? and what he was in Pisco for?, he answer me that, he was from the US and that he was in Pisco for tourism; so I thought that he looked like a good client, so we keep talking, and then he asked me for a place where he can paint some fishing boat and how much it will cost him for me to take him there; I just charged him my daily salary, so, he agreed with the price. The plan was only to take him to a fishing port for one day; but I never expect that we would go to so many places and so faraway, with was the best experience of my life, of course I was earning more money and getting a lot of experience; I also want to say that it was very good to travel with Gregg, because he was a very happy person.

Our first trip was to the south of Peru, later we also when to Bolivia, Argentina and Chile for three month, that was the longest trip that I have done in my life, I really enjoy everything; it was so cool to see Gregg doing his painting, so I already start doing painting as well; well I’m not good at it, but I already know what Gregg feel when he is setting there very concentrated doing the thing he love. Our best trip was in the Peruvian Jungle; we when to the east of Lima to La Merced, but our destination was Atalalla-Pucallpa, so we had to go through Satipo and Puerto Ocopo get a boat for 6 hour to Atalalla and then get a bigger boat to Pucallpa. This wasn’t the regular GRINGO trail, but the reason why we decide to go by this area, was because we wanted to see the real life stile of the jugle people and we really did. One day we took a tour for Gregg to paint a water fall, and to get to the water fall we had to walk down a cliff full of trees, there was a heavy rain the night before, so our guide was always asking us to be careful because it was very slippery and there can be some snakes on the way; this was making everything more exiting; later from one moment into the other Gregg slipped and he was close to fall over the cliff, but I immediately grab his feet, this was very scare but we anyways continue.

I think that travel is a good thing in Life and way more when you travel doing the thing you love; is also good for you to open your mine and see that the world is more than what you imagine.

I hope that Gregg never stop traveling and doing painting, but anyways if he one day stop, then I will continue!!! Thank you very much for you help Gregg, a part of my house is already rebuild thank to you; there still a lot to rebuild, but I will keep working hard to rebuild my whole house. Everybody is welcome to Perú; I will be here for anybody who need my help, Nilton La Rosa.

Nilton La Rosa Ramos is a tour guide from Pisco, Peru, a reliable travel companion, and a great friend. Since the catastrophic earthquake hit Pisco last August, Nilton has been slowly rebuilding his family's home and resumed giving tours to travelers trickling back into the area. A fund has been set up to help the La Rosa family. Donations can be made to the The La Rosa Donation Fund at any Wells Fargo bank within the USA. Nilton can be contacted at turisnilton@yahoo.com.