Painting on a jet plane

Peninsula artist Kim Attwooll shows off her “traveling buddy” — her portable art set — in her studio between Sequim and Port Angeles. Photo by Avani Nadkarni

Kim Attwooll finds an artistic way to battle flight anxiety.

by Avani Nadkarni
Staff writer

Globe-trotting artist Kim Attwooll finds inspiration in the most unusual places — looking out a tiny airplane window from 30,000 feet, in the pages of an in-flight magazine or from a cupful of water from the waters of an ocean.  

“If I’m in Hawaii, I don’t use tap water to mix my paint with, I use the Pacific,” Attwooll said. “One of the greatest things is having England or Italy or Hawaii on my  mind and letting it fall off my brush.”

While the destinations were dreams come true, Attwooll said, she always was anxious about the journey — specifically the countless hours spent sitting nervously in airplanes.

“I was sick and tired of sitting on a plane listening to engine noises and worrying about every noise and bump,” Attwooll said. “I am a nervous flier.”

So, about a dozen years ago, the painter decided to do what she loves best on those tiring trips. Now, Attwooll has added a few must-haves for her journeys, including portable painting kits, sketching pencils, her favorite paintbrushes, a spritzer bottle to fill with water, a container of salt to add texture to her paintings and plenty of tissues for turbulence.

From the takeoff until just before landing, Attwooll said she loses herself in her work, creating five or six postcard-size paintings on a three- to four-hour flight. 

Attwooll said her work is a take on “en plein air,” a French expression that describes painting outdoors in natural light.
“I paint ‘in plane air,’” Attwooll said, adding that she made several pieces on a recent trip returning from her daughter’s wedding in Washington, D.C.

When she’s not painting high above the ground, Attwooll said she spends about 10 hours a day in the converted-barn studio adjacent to her home where she paints or teaches classes. She prefers creating greeting card-sized paintings as opposed to giant ones.

“We lived in the boat yard our family owned and ran the (boat yard) business and raised a family,” said Attwooll, a native New Yorker who now sells her pieces under the name A Small Work of Art. “There was very little time for me to paint, so I only had time to do something tiny and out of that pressure came a beautiful business.”

Attwooll uses the works she creates on the airplanes to create greeting cards — she makes the prints, “enhances” them with various mediums to add flavor and mounts them on greeting cards. Lately, she said, she has been making personalized  cards for businesses to give to their clients during the holidays.

Still, she said, she has created some of her best work high above the United States, where she can get a new perspective on life and art.
“You just lose yourself in doing the work and forget about everything else,” she said.

Kim Attwooll’s pieces can be seen and purchased at Country Aire Natural Foods, Odyssey Books and Lake Crescent Lodge in Port Angeles and Wild Birds Unlimited in Gardiner. She can be contacted at 504-0205 or www.ASmallWorkofArt.com.


“In plane air”
Kim Attwooll is a strong believer that “anyone can paint, it doesn’t have to be a huge production.” For those interested in painting on planes, Attwooll recommends a few tools including a travel watercolor kit, which comes in a pan or tube format and contains paints and brushes. Attwooll said these kits can be found online at North Carolina-based www.CheapJoes.com or Seattle-based www.DanielSmith.com or at area vendors such as Olympic Stationers and Art Supplies Unlimited in Port Angeles or Akamai Art and Glass Supply in Port Townsend.

Attwooll recommends bringing along a spritzer bottle to fill with water to keep paint from drying, paper towels, sketch pencils and a pad of paper.

Kim Attwooll finds an artistic way to battle flight anxiety