5 must-haves when painting on-the-go

Every weekend, I'll try to do a post that doesn't involve any makeup whatsoever. It's a great way to detox from a beauty-filled five days, I think, and it's how I spend most of my weekends anyway. I try not to think about makeup during the weekend because I'll go insane otherwise haha. My blog and even my work is all about cosmetics, so it really helps to give no shits about it on my days off. 

Today I thought I'd show you what I like to bring with me when I sketch and paint outside. My home is a lovely place to work on more complex things, but it's just more spontaneous when I sit at a coffee shop somewhere and put to paper whatever excites me! There are limitations since 1) I don't like to bring big bags and 2) I can't really spread all my stuff out on a small cafe table. It's just too messy and impractical. 

So I scale down, and bring only the things I need. Check out my convenient sketching/painting must-haves when I'm on-the-go! I usually bring them when I know I have some time in between meetings or when I see friends. (Painting + awesome conversations = the best!)

Paint transferred to a plastic palette. I have a few palettes and tubes but this is the most convenient set-up that I've found so far. I "depotted" some liquid paint in these Royal & Langnickel palettes (P60 each at Fully Booked) and waited for them to dry. Voila, instant, customized palettes! They are thin and lightweight, and I just tie them facing each other with a rubber band.

I definitely need more of these R&L things.

Pilot Brush Pens. These super useful for painting without having to keep on dipping and cleaning the brush in a saucer of water! I got both from Tokyo, as I can't seem to find these here.  If you're interested, you can find brush pens in Deovir from Royal & Langnickel at P280 for a pack of three. They're not very good though. It's hard to control the water that goes out so it ends up ruining my work.

I *think* these Pilot ones were about 500 yen or P250 each.

Basic drawing materials. I use a mechanical pencil because I hate sharpening. The Pigma Micron pens are pretty awesome for pen and wash paintings - they're waterproof and super black! I saw a bunch of them last week at the National Bookstore in Powerplant for P50+ each. How awesome, I've been looking for this brand since I saw one of my fave artists on IG using it all the time.

As for erasers, I use one from Cretacolor. It's soft and does not ruin the paper. I got it from Fully Booked in Greenbelt 5.

Mini paper palette. This is the bee's knees. It's paper covered in wax so you can use it to mix your colors, and then dispose of each page when you're done. No need to wash ceramic or plastic palettes after every use!

The brand I have is Holbein (again from Tokyo) but I've seen paper palettes in Fully Booked and National Bookstore. They're not as small as this one though.

Sketchbook. Probably the most important thing haha. I have a few sketchbooks in different sizes, so I just bring whatever I feel like filling up - or whatever fits my bag of the day haha. Sketchbooks represent freedom from commitment when I work. I can do whatever I want without worrying about ruining expensive water-colour paper.

I like the Neko brand which can be found in Deovir, as well as Monolith which is available in Fully Booked. I have yet to buy a Moleskine - should I? I feel it's a waste of money. Their water-color sketchbook is P1,900! 

So that's what I bring with me when I work outside. Sometimes, if I have my iPad Mini with me, I use it as a reference to study more techniques or just to get inspiration. Aside from tethering my Smart iPhone 5's LTE with it, I also have a MiFi device on Smart. That's why I'm pretty happy to hear about the Smart Bro Dashboard! 

The Smart Bro Dashboard allows you to track your internet usage efficiently. With it you can see your current load balance, current package registered to, and a few exciting features that shows you your usage and charging. It has a volume meter to monitor Always on packages, and a Time counter to monitor time-based packages. You also get a notification when your load/package expires or goes out of the free area.

On top of that, you get free content while you inside the dashboard – free social networking feeds of Facebook and Twitter thanks to Smart Net! Cool huh?

If you're interested, just plug in your Smart Bro Plug-it or connect to your Smart Bro Pocket Wifi and open your browser and the dashboard will automatically pop out.  For existing subscribers, the dashboard will appear upon expiration of bucket or zero balance. Do explore the features here! 

I hope you found that useful. ^_^ Tell me what you love to bring with you when you work offsite too!

This post is brought to you by Smart.