Travel Time

I'm away in sunny Los Angeles for Christmas, visiting my relatives out here and wondering why I ever left. While I'm here, I'll be painting a group portrait of my uncle and his family. There are some supplies which I knew I wouldn't be able to bring with me--the canvas is a little bulky and delicate for air travel, and the copal oil is flammable, so there's no way that would ever get past the TSA. The oil paints and brushes are okay for travel and are too expensive to buy for just one painting, so I was determined to bring them with me.

I started by doing some research. I probably shouldn't have, because it left me paranoid about getting my paints onto the plane. I read countless horror stories about paints being confiscated by security officials who apparently considered them to be on the no-fly list. One artist recommended checking the paints, another wrote about checked paints being confiscated from checked baggage. All of them recommended printing out information sheets from the paint manufacturers to show to the TSA officials in order to persuade them to not confiscate my paints.

I debated what to do for a couple days, reading and re-reading the official TSA information, before finally deciding to bring the paints in my carry-on bag. Each tube is smaller than the allotted 3 ounces and, luckily, they all fit in a one quart bag (just barely!). I wasn't sure if my bundled brushes would get past security or be considered a potential weapon, so I put those in my checked bag.

When I got to the security checkpoint, the manufacturer's sheet turned out to be completely unnecessary. The TSA at Bradley airport have some sort of very quick (a few seconds) test they run to verify that the paints are paints (or whatever it is they were testing for) and that's it. I was good to go (except for the part where I didn't realize there was metal in my new knee brace--but that's a different story).