Picnic Essentials for Artists and Other Picnickers

We're off for a picnic, a day out that involves lunch, and we're not going to a cafe or restaurant to eat, and of course we're going to the seaside. Did I mention that?
Mary Kemp
Picnic Among the Sand Dunes
Oil on canvas panel
30 x 30 cm


So here are a few essentials, in no particular order, but they do include things that an artist might take with her, over and above the wet wipes and the suntan lotion.




Mary Kemp
Two Girls and Boy by the Sea
Oil on canvas panel.
30 x 30 cm

  • Food, which really has to be the most important thing to pack. It doesn't have to be highly nutritious or good for you on this occasion. I like it to be of the high fat, high sugar variety, crisps, pork pies, not much salad because you can't eat it easily with out of a bowl. Sweet is just that, sweets, chocolate bars, yoghurt for wimps and, if you must have fruit, bananas because they go squashy very quickly.
  • Drink, sugary drinks for all. Alcohol for the hardened drinkers among us, if you can have a snooze later on. Stewed tea in a flask or watery coffee. All drunk out of plastic mugs if you can remember them.
  • Mary Kemp
    Day at the Seaside
    Oil on canvas panel.
    30 x 30 cm
  • Something to Sit On Children can have a blanket, that's big enough for all, except one, just to add to the chaos. This grown up wants a chair that someone else carries.
  • Something to Do. This is the most important. You need towels and cossies for the swimmers, towels for the paddlers. A change of clothes for any one under 20, a few buckets and spades, as bright as possible so you don't loose them, and a good book if you like reading.
  • The Artist's Essentials. This is my drawing kit at the moment. 
    Sketching Kit
    Summer 2016
    (No phone here because
    I used it to take the photo!)
  • Sun hat, 
  • Sun glasses, 
  • Phone for photos
  • Sketch book, square 8" x 8"
  • Pencil
  • Watercolour paints
  • Brush
  • J cloth
  • Water soluble pen
  • Water
  • Container.
And at the end of the day we all went to a cafe and had a cup of tea and a bun before travelling home, tired but happy!

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