The standard set of things which you need to take on oil painting plein air studies:

1. Painter’s case, and it’s better to carry it in a back pack.
2. A surface (base material); for example, a canvas on hardboard, or a canvas on a frame.
3. Wooden varnished palette
4. Pencils or charcoal
5. Eraser
6. Knife to sharpen the pencils
7. A set of brushes, for example 3 wide, 3 medium and 3 narrow bristle brushes
8. Palette knife
9. Reservoir for thinner (check that there are no leaks)
10. Palette cup
11. Paints (for example, white, blue, red, green and yellow). Generally speaking, choose paints that enable you to mix every color.
12. Rags
13. Plein air umbrella
14. Light, transportable chair
15. A hat (ideally it should cover your neck and ears, and has a brim). The sun will shine even through clouds.
16. Sunscreen; medical professionals suggest that UV exposure can result in skin cancer, especially with sensitive skin. It’s not just a burn which will heal after couple of days, so take care of yourself.
17. Food and water
18. Clothes in case it’s windy. In an open windy area you can get cold even on a sunny day. Ideally your clothes shouldn’t be white or bright to avoid reflecting light on the artwork, and try to cover your hands to protect them from sunshine.
19. Comfortable footwear
20. Insect repellent; be especially aware of midges (at least in Russia), small flies which live in the wet earth or close to water. They appear in the evening (there are 300 different species of midges). At first their bites don’t hurt compared with mosquitoes, but they can take a long time to heal, they hurt and they can lead to an allergic reaction.

Part 2: special stuff I take to plein air + checklist