Preparing for Provence

I’ve never been a fan of the heat, I tend to wilt and complain a lot! To be honest, initially I would have preferred my time here to be in the Autumn or Spring, but with an offer to return here at other times of the year as well I felt that maybe the heat was something that I should embrace. Seeing Provence in the summer months would certainly give me a rounded impression. After a little bit of research I discovered that around this time of year Provence should have it’s iconic Lavender fields in almost full bloom. This along with various images that I found of Provence in June convinced me that whatever discomfort I might be in, this was the right thing for me to do.

So, how hot is it likely to be I asked Google, of course! Around 26 degrees it said…bullshit I thought! I’m lucky to have my own Google living next door, accept we all call him Derek. He often relays a weather report to me from Southern France, provided by his daughter. I’ve only ever heard him mention temperatures of mid 30s plus for this time of year.

At this point it is not so much how will I cope with these temperatures but more how will my paints.

My Field Kit

I knew that I wanted and needed to be as mobile as possible. To be able to just stop paint or draw in my sketchbooks and then move on asap. Oils were out straight away, they take far too long to dry. Watercolours….mmmm…sorry, no, just NO! I’d just end up with pages of mud.

Despite watercolours always being an entry level medium for new artists, I think they are one of the most technically challenging of all mediums. No wonder so many people give up with art. If you know a good watercolour artist, buy them a beer!

It had to be acrylics. I knew that I would need to use a retarder medium, which would delay the evaporation process, but I wanted efficiency, and not to be dispensing an additive to mix with my paint each time. I decided that the only way around this was to make my own tubes of paint, premixed with retarder. After a fair bit of messing about I managed to fill my newly sourced blank/empty 60ml paint tubes.

In the spirit of keeping myself as mobile as possible I needed to keep the selection of paints that I was to take with me to a minimal. As I’ve mentioned previously, I love a simple colour palette but how to anticipate what colours I would find. I decided to bring a warm and a cool hue from each of the primary colours (Red, Yellow and Blue) plus White, Burnt Umber and my favourite Black. I selected a few brushes and an equal amount of palette knives, made myself some colour charts and assembled my field kit which I managed to fit into a customized clamp sealable plastic container which was just over A4 in size. This fitted nicely inside my 25 litre rucksack with room to spare for a few sketchbooks and most importantly, my water camel pac.

After a few test field trips I realised that I was going to need something more. The temperatures in Somerset at the time of testing were around 16 degrees. With this and the wind my paints were still drying too fast. I couldn’t risk adding much more retarder with the possibility that the paint would never set. I had to come up with another plan, or at least an additional one.

I looked into wet palettes. For those that don’t know, these are essentially a sealable plastic box, within which is a piece of blotting paper or a thin sponge soaked with water, and a sort of wax treated paper that sits on top. The paint is mixed on the waxed paper and the moisture from the sponge permeates through to keep the paint from drying out too fast. Instead of adding yet another thing to cart around France with me, I managed to convert the lid of my field kit box into a wet palette. Using a thin sponge material to absorb and hold the water, some grease proof baking parchment to act as my disposable palette paper and some magnets to hold everything in place whilst the lid was inverted during transit in my rucksack.

NOW! My Somerset tried and tested field kit was ready.

Wheels Up

When packing to board my flight, my art materials were the priority. Keeping the appearance of abiding to my wife’s insistence to bring enough to wear for the three weeks, a neat pile of clothes was created whilst I busily ensured that the essential art stuff fitted and came in under weight. Don’t worry, I found room for some clothes, mainly my “painters” as I call them. I must have re-packed and checked the weight of my luggage a round 10 times as I continuously found things that I might want to try whilst away.

Arrival at Marseille airport on the 18th June was relatively uneventful, which is just what you want from a plane flight!

Back at Bristol airport it was a relief to all onboard when we starting to make our way onto the runway. Knowing that we were actually going to be able to leave. We had all been called off the transfer bus because they were waiting for air crew to turn up for their shift. I overheard one passenger say to his travelling companion with a look of serious concern and seeming experience “This is how flights get cancelled”. Easy Jet had cancelled my outbound flight a week earlier, causing me a two day delayed start and then the day before I was departing, I heard that my home bound flight was also cancelled, so they had form!

Fortunately nothing came of it and off we went.