Ken Faulks - Canadian Plein Air Painter - 2011 British Columbia and Alberta Painting Trip

PAINTING EQUIPMENT:

The equipment I use use is all about portability. I need to keep my painting gear as light and portable as possible and, over time, have simplified my gear to suite me and still meet the light and portable requirement. I've listed below the bits of gear that I've been using, which seems to work for me.

The only thing missing (presently) is a decent paintng umbrella, but hope to purchase and take possession of a new Best Brella before heading out on this latest trip.

 

THE PAINT BOX

I've got a paint box which is approximately 14"d x 18"w x 4"h.  The box shown here is very similar to teh one I have, with the exception of mine is really worn in.  I've been using it for over 20 years.

Ken Faulks - Canadian Plein Air Painter - Plein Air Paint BoxIt carries all my painting gear really... my paints, brushes, thinners for cleaning my brushes and a towel with which to wipe my brushes. 

The palette slides into the lid, so the wet paint can be stored without taking it off teh palette and it's good to go for the next painting.

As well, I've attached a shoulder strap to the box, so I can easily carry it aling with my easle which also has it's own shoulder strap.

 

Ken Faulks - Canadian Plein Air Painter - Stanrite Plein air EasleTHE EASLE:

My portable easle is a Stanrite Deluxe No.300 (Portable Easel). This is a really great easle for plein air painting, made of aluminium, and is quite light.  A great attribute when it comes to carrying ones gear any distance.  This easle is available at Curry's Art Supply.

I've got a small umbrella for this, but may have to find a bigger one to attach.

MATERIALS:

When I started out plein air painting, I had been illustrating exclusively. So, up until that point, I had not used anything but acrylic paint. Therefore with acrylics being 100% of my paint supply, that's what I went out with.

I enjoyed painting out doors, but with the weather being quite hot at times, I found my paints would dry far too fast to be practical, and definitely on those hot days, they would dry on my brush before I could get it on the panel or canvas.

I also liked the look of oils and teh thick body of the paints. Acrylics when drying, shrink, so the  three dimensional quality of my brush strokes would all but disappear.

It was because of these things that I decided, in pretty short order, to go with oils. I never looked back after that. Oils are the way to go for me!

 

PAINTS:

I started out using Winsor & Newton artist quality oil paints in the small tubes.  I really like W & N artist quality paints. they are, however, on the  pricey side. Maybe not as pricey as some, but still worth their weight.

So, I ended up using Stevenson Oil Paints which are artist quality and made in Canada.

I occasionally pull out the watercolours, qouach, or graphite and do a little sktch on paper.

Artworld Art Supplies, in Victoria BC, is where I get almost all my art supplies from.

PHOTOGRAPHY EQUIPMENT:

First off, I don't consider my self a photographer, but more along the lines of "a guy with a camera".

I do enjoy taking photos and have been accumulating quite a lot of pics along the way.

 

THE CAMERA:

I've been shooting with a Nikon D300 in the last 2-3 years.  I got it so I could document my paintings and also take good quality photos for illustration purposes. It was important to me to be able to take an image that was press quality at the size of a double page magazine spread.

 

THE LENSES:

I've got a couple lenses to go with the camera as well. The first is a NIkon 16-85 mm lense which I've been using for shooting most of my photographs.

The second lense is a Nikkor 70-200 mm, which is great for the more distant subjects.

I do have a tripod, with a quick grip head that will be coming along for the ride too.

 

COMPUTER & SOFTWARE:

COMPUTER:

Ken Faulks - Canadian Plein Air Painter - Macbook ProThe laptop I have is a 15" Apple Macbook Pro.  It's about the 3rd one I've had since getting digital about 12 years ago. I love Macs, the intuitive and logical way the interface works and looks.

I've pounded away on them for several hours and almost every day. They just keep working! The last 2 I've had for about 4.5 years each.

Byte Computers in Victoria is where I deal. Owen Moore (owner) and the guys there are great to deal with.

 

TABLET & SOFTWARE:

Along with my ;laptop, I use a Wacom Tablet. This is a pressure sensitive tablet & pen with which I can (digitally) draw and paint directly onto the computer screen.

Using the Wacom tablet in conjunction with programs such as Adobe Photoshop (I'm using CS4), and Corel Painter (I'm using Painter 11).

With these tools I can take full advantage of the digital medium...  paint, draw, illustrate etc. Examples of digital paintng can be seen under 'ABSTRACTION' on both my painting site and my illustration site.

I also use Adobe Lightroom for my photographs. It's Adobe' digital darkroom, where one can digitally develop and organize their photographs.