What kind of outdoor painting gear do you use?

I get asked this question a lot. My setup is made of inexpensive components, is simple and works well for me. Below are some photos of my outdoor painting setup for painting in acrylics. I hope you will find some of the ideas pictured here to be helpful. If you are planning to take an outdoor painting workshop and have never painted outside before, it is a very good idea to try painting outside yourself first. Testing out your setup a couple of months before your workshop helps you see what kinks in your setup need to be ironed out. You don’t want to spend all your time at the workshop fighting your gear and trying to figure out how to stop things from blowing away, spilling, drying out too fast or falling over.

setup My setup is a wooden box that sits on top of a standard camera tripod. I use two palettes - the tear-off paper palette to mix my paints (seen on the left) and a small plastic palette with the bottom covered in damp paper towels to squeeze my paint onto and prevent it from drying out (clipped to the right side of my paint box).

The inside of the box lid is where I attach the board I will paint on. My brushes are attached to the top of the lid with velcro and a spray bottle of water, to spray the paints I have squeezed onto the small palette, hangs below my paint box.

setup My collapsible water container hangs from the tripod handle and is attached to the handle with velcro.

setup A cap screws down onto the tripod screw that comes through a hole in the bottom of the box.

setup A wooden stick slides into place to keep the box lid open. I drilled two 1/4" holes in the sides of the box and the stick has short pieces of dowel in the ends that fit into the holes in the sides of the box to make it stay put.

setup The paper palette has velcro on the bottom to stick it onto velcro on the top of the sides of the paint box. My paints are stored under the paper palette.

	My setup is a wooden box that sits on top of a standard camera tripod. I use two palettes - the tear-off paper palette to mix my paints (seen on the left) and a small plastic palette with the bottom covered in damp paper towels to squeeze my paint onto and prevent it from drying out (clipped to the right side of my paint box). The inside of the box lid is where I attach the board I will paint on. My brushes are attached to the top of the lid with velcro and a spray bottle of water, to spray the paints I have squeezed onto the small palette, hangs below my paint box.
	My collapsible water container hangs from the tripod handle and is attached to the handle with velcro.
	A cap screws down onto the tripod screw that comes through a hole in the bottom of the box.
	A wooden stick slides into place to keep the box lid open. I drilled two 1/4" holes in the sides of the box and the stick has short pieces of dowel in the ends that fit into the holes in the sides of the box to make it stay put.
	The paper palette has velcro on the bottom to stick it onto velcro on the top of the sides of the paint box. My paints are stored under the paper palette.