My paintbox

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I wanted to take my oils to do a plein air painting, an on-location painting, so I stuffed everything in a cardboard box, and off I went in my car. Now I use the box permanently! Hey! Big brushes in a coffee can that has a heavy rock in the bottom so it won't tip over. Little brushes in a little cup. Big tubes of paint in another can, as the little tubes of paint. I like to keep tubes of oils standing on the caps so that the oil that separates doesn't come all squishing out when I try to squeeze out a bit of paint, it rises to the back end of the tube.

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The thing with the holes in it is a brilliant invention, not of my own, for cleaning brushes. A jelly jar with a can that fits inside, upside down with nail holes, nearly full of odorless paint thinner from the hardware store. It was fun in the grocery store, finding a wide mouthed jar with a metal lid, and then carrying it around comparing it to cans of something that the can would be the right size to fit inside. Oops, it's an Apple Butter jar. Hang the price, I think it was nearly six dollars, but the jar/cleaner is great!

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Oh, paint rags around the edges, and for a pallette, an old white saucer, or a tuna fish can bottom! I find I'm happier with little things for little bits of paint for the little paintings I'm doing. Sometimes I hold a pallet knife in my left hand with a blob of paint on it for painting in small details where I have to reload my brush a lot.

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Working on a big painting will need using a bigger pallette, a glass shelf from a discarded refridgerator, on something white. Any paint that dries is easily scraped off after a bit of a soak in soapy water.

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So, since I work from the photos I take, which hide in my computer, I sit in front of my computer and "Lap paint", my trusty paintbox beside me on a little table.

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Ha, two more photos. This works so well for me.

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One point I'd like to make: many of the pigments and solvents used in oil painting are very poisonous. I have a fan blowing from behind me, across my canvas and pallette, and on outside. And I never let stray bits of paint stay on my skin when I see I've been messy, as I always am. Linseed oil is safe, but turpentine and thinner are not. Linseed oil and flaxseed oil are the same thing with different names. I use paint straight out of the tube, sometimes thinning it a little.

If you want to see these photos larger, just click on them.

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OK! All for now, thanks for visiting!