In my plein air painting workshops, it's gotten to be an in-joke. When someone announces, usually with regret, that he'd forgotten to bring a particular tube of paint or a certain brush, the sympathetic response from the group is: “Hey, it's okay—every ounce counts.” The idea being that, as plein air painters, we try to lighten our load—even though we may sometimes forget an important item.
Our gear and materials can be heavy, and the ounces do add up. Whether you're toting everything in a rolling cart, a boat bag or, as I do, a backpack, one more tube of paint can be the difference between comfort and pain. Hikers and backpackers will be familiar with this concept.
Until the pandemic, I taught many back-to-back workshops. My pack, which contained not just things to paint with but a few things to teach with, accompanied me to each location. A couple of times a year, I'd pull a tiny muscle in my back, and the pain would be bad enough to put me in bed for a few days—unless, of course, I was teaching, in which case I just had to slog on. One year, I hurt my back very badly, and I didn't have time to rest it properly. Consequently, I just injured it more, and I was in agony.
Maybe I'm a bit slow, because I didn't connect the back pain to the backpack until COVID came along. When the pandemic hit, the in-person workshops stopped. The backpack stayed in the closet. For my personal painting expeditions, I started taking a light shoulder bag, just big enough to hold my very minimal gouache kit. One day, I realized I hadn't had any back problems since I stopped carrying the backpack.
Out of curiosity, I thought I'd weigh the various things I typically stuff in my pack, using an old postal scale. Also, because I use a variety of surfaces for oil painting, I thought I'd weigh a few of those, too, since some surfaces seemed heavier than others. You can find my list of all this below.
By the way, I'm now teaching workshops and running painting retreats again. (You can check out my current schedule here. More to come!) And I'm now handling my backpack with Right Mindfulness.
|
Item |
Weight (kg) |
|
|
Masking tape roll |
0.02 |
|
|
Pencil kit (with 3 pencils, eraser, sharpener) |
0.11 |
|
|
PanelPak (9x12, not loaded) / add 0.472 kg if + two panels |
0.11 |
|
|
Sketchbook (3.5x5) |
0.14 |
|
|
Paper towel roll (full) |
0.21 |
|
|
Leatherman multitool kit |
0.27 |
|
|
Brush tube (with 8 brushes) |
0.30 |
|
|
Turps can (small, full) |
0.43 |
|
|
Box of paints (partly-empty tubes) |
0.94 |
|
|
Palette box (DayTripper from Prolific Painter) |
1.29 |
|
|
Backpack (REI Alpine) |
1.46 |
|
|
Tripod plus panel holder (ProMaster XC525, DayTripper holder) |
1.82 |
|
|
Total |
7.10 |
(15.6 pounds) |
|
|
|
|
|
Panels (9x12, 1/8”) |
Weight (g) |
|
|
Multimedia Artboard + 1 coat acrylic matte medium (thinner than 1/8”) |
36 |
|
|
Hardboard + 2 coats acrylic gesso |
236 |
|
|
ACM + 2 coats acrylic gesso (Aluminum Composite Material) |
314 |
|
|
ACM + 1 coat oil ground |
314 |
|
|
ACM + 2 coats BIN |
316 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Panels (8x10) |
Weight (g) |
|
|
Multimedia Artboard with linen surface |
54 |
|
|
Multimedia Artboard on Sintra |
118 |
|
