On a roll

Two woodpeckers of indeterminate specie.

Traveling and painting big art can be a problem. I am painting some 24 by 36's and 24 by 30's.
Here is how I do that.

I carry only one set of each size stretcher. These are the oversized, "professional" stretchers that are about the size of a mans wrist. I like those for bigger paintings as they don't "bow-tie", that is, contort inwards at the middle. The lightweight stretchers are less than ideal for anything larger than an 18 by 24. I carry a box with several sets of large stretchers knocked down , a roll of canvas in its fiberboard tube, a stapler and canvas pliers.

In the morning before I set out to make a large painting I assemble and square a set of the stretchers and mount the canvas on them. After I have finished the painting outside I leave it in the sun to dry. This works particularly well in the desert of course. But I also paint with an alkyd medium, usually Liquin, so I get quick drying times anyway. By about the second day the painting is dry to the touch. I then pull the staples out from it's perimeter, and take the canvas off of the stretchers again.

Often I carry a second tube, from a mailboxes store, but on this trip I have only the tube with my canvas in it. I lay the painting out on the ground, or the top of a large bear proof steel storage box
and gently roll it, painting side inwards, back on the roll from which it originally sprang. Now I have my stretchers back for use on another large painting.

I have done this many times and have never had any problems resulting from rolling the paintings. It may help that they are still newly painted and very flexible, I don't know. When I get home I will put all of them back on stretchers of the correct size and then finish them in my studio.

This system allows me to carry only two sets of large stretchers and paint as many big paintings on a trip as I like, without having a car full of enormous paintings to protect all the way home from the abuse of travel. Sometimes I have stopped at a UPS store and bought a tube from them, which they sell in many sizes, and mailed the rolled paintings back to myself at home. Works great.

I don't paint any small pictures, a 16 by 20 is about as small as I like to work so this enables me to avoid having to do the pochade box (pronounced pochade ) miniatures that many traveling artists make. I need full sized paintings for the galleries and I don't want to make them in the studio from sketches and photos, I want to actually paint them on location. I get better results that way, and show the original art rather than studio made versions art in my exhibitions.