Discovering what art supplies work best for travel watercolor painting has become a quest for me. Until a few minutes ago I hadn’t found the right material to lay on top of a not-quite-dry watercolor painting in my journal. Sometimes you need to close your painting journal at a moment’s notice and get on a bus, plane or or train or get out of the way of a parade.

I always advise my students to use the words, “ what if” to stimulate their creative thinking skills. So, I looked around the airport and happened on some paper designed for another purpose, that looked like it just might be thin and crisp enough to not absorb and remove too much wet watercolor paint when pressed between the pages of my watercolor journal. When I land I’ll report how well it worked. And by the way I also found some artist’s tissue in the same location I found the page separating material.