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January 14, 2011

“hugh’s portable studio”

18 Comments

This is everything I use to make my tra­de­mark “Car­toons Drawn On The Back of Busi­ness Cards”. Clock­wise from left:

1. The Marfa bag. A small, mili­tary sur­plus bag I bought at the Marfa Book Co. about a year ago. Lots of poc­kets. Nice and sturdy.

2. Vinyl busi­ness card wallet. Where I keep the dra­wings after I’ve com­ple­ted them. Ten dollars or so from Sta­ples.

3. Alu­mi­nium busi­ness card hol­der. Holds about fifty blank cards. Bought it at Muji in Lon­don circa 2006. All the cards are cut from Strath­more Bris­tol 300 Series.

4. Sil­ver Ipod Shuf­fle & headpho­nes. Good for bloc­king out unwan­ted noise etc. Bought that from the Miami Apple Store on Lin­coln Road. Current play­list con­sists of mainly Steve Reich and Mice Parade.

5. Moles­kine blank sketch­book. Don’t use it too much, but it comes in handy for scrib­bling stuff down on occasion.

6. A tin of Pep­per­mint Altoids. Always lovely to have.

7. Small X-Acto cut­ting mat. I don’t use it for cut­ting; I use it as a por­ta­ble dra­wing sur­face. Not too big so it’s good for dra­wing on small cafe tables and whatnot.

8. Koh-I-Noor Uni­ver­sal India Ink. Highly per­ma­nent. One small bottle lasts for months.

9. My pens. Bund­led with an elas­tic band. Four Kohi­noor Rapi­do­graphs [0.3mm & 0.35mm], One Paper­mate “Tuff Stuff” Era­ser Stick [good for clea­ning smud­ges etc].

10. Large plas­tic box of blank busi­ness cards. About 250 of them for backup.

And that’s it. Nothing else goes into the Marfa bag– I like to keep it as pared down as pos­si­ble. I see the bag as a sort of “por­ta­ble stu­dio”, which tra­vels with me everywhere I go. Sure, I use other things in my office– a Motion digi­tal tablet etc– but what fits into the Marfa bag is THE cor­ners­tone. This is where the adven­ture starts; this is how it has always done so for the last decade or so.

Thanks and Godspeed.

Tags: Cartoons on the back of business cards, Hugh's Work, Ipod Shuffle, Marfa Book Co, Miami Apple Store, Muji, Portable Studio, Staples, strathmore Bristol 300 Series

18 Responses to ““hugh’s portable studio””

1. TOC says:

   January 14, 2011 at 6:46 AM

   Nice and sim­ple, I can dig it.
   now tell us what kind of play­lists you keep on that ipod ; )

   Reply
2. Alexia says:

   January 14, 2011 at 8:29 AM

   Hello Mr MacL,

   I always love this sort of run down — appeals to the sta­tio­nery geek in me. I’m curious, though, about your ‘non-portable’ works­tuff too — do you ever use a scan­ner, by any chance? And if so, have you any ste­llar recommendations?

   Thanks for the ins­pi­ra­tion — it has given me the boost I nee­ded to go off and do a little bit of scrib­bling of my own.

   big smooch,
   Ale­xia xxxx

   Reply
3. Laura says:

   January 14, 2011 at 9:27 AM

   I don’t do busi­ness card sketches, but I do do post­card sketches. Currently using Shar­pies, because I figu­red they’d stand the mail bet­ter than tra­di­tio­nal ink.

   What do you think? Is the india ink per­ma­nent? Does it run?

   I used to use Rapi­do­graphs, way way back, it would be fun to go back to them.

   Reply
4. Brian says:

   January 14, 2011 at 1:47 PM

   I love the mini­ma­lis­tic approach that is almost zen like. I’m a huge fan of Noodler’s Bullet­proof black ink — won’t run or bleed on coarse papers, it’s self lubri­ca­ting, and is almost impos­si­ble to remove. In fact they have a world forger’s cha­llenge to see if anyone can remove it from paper

   Love your setup!

   Reply
5. Shane says:

   January 14, 2011 at 3:08 PM

   Thanks for sha­ring. This is fun to see. Gives us, your fans, a little more insight into your process.

   Reply
6. Jackson Dunes, Pug At The Beach says:

   January 14, 2011 at 6:41 PM

   Very nice indeed! It’s always an ins­pi­ra­tion to see the tools other artists use.

   In my second book I added a tid­bit or two to my illus­tra­tions with my father’s quill pen which is at least 50 years old. He’s long gone now so this adds a nice sen­ti­ment to the work.

   Jack­son Dunes
   Author of Pug At The Beach, An island dog’s reflec­tions on life
   http://amzn.to/JacksonDunes

   Reply
7. Shelley Noble says:

   January 15, 2011 at 6:41 PM

   What the hell hap­pe­ned? I went away a cou­ple years ago pis­sed ad disap­poin­ted that you announ­ced you were taking the blog pri­vate. It must have been your Tribe explo­ra­tion? (Eli­tism in New media pro­ves just as douchy as Old to me.)

   Thank good­ness you retur­ned to public. It’s the point really, isn’t it.

   Reply
8. CM+ Top Reads | Create Minded says:

   January 16, 2011 at 6:15 AM

   […] Hugh Mac­Leod sha­res the equip­ment he takes out with him when dra­wing his tra­de­mark car­toons on the back of busi­ness cards – ‘Hugh’s Por­ta­ble Studio’. […]

   Reply
9. David Bradley says:

   January 17, 2011 at 10:42 AM

   We don’t have Altoids over here. Are they for trea­ting the kind of pro­blem you get when sit­ting too long on a hard seat in an air­port depar­ture lounge?

   Reply
10. Wesley-Anne Rodrigues says:

    January 18, 2011 at 9:59 AM

    I was lucky enough to see Hugh and his MARFA bag in real life =) Fas­ci­na­ting stuff for sure.

    Reply
11. Tools of the trade: Steve Clayton - Next at Microsoft - Site Home - TechNet Blogs says:

    January 18, 2011 at 12:17 PM

    […] be fun on the site – Tools of the Trade. I was ins­pi­red by Hugh’s recent post on his por­ta­ble stu­dio which got thin­king about what I carry around every day – what are the tools of my trade? […]

    Reply
12. Andertoons says:

    January 27, 2011 at 1:41 PM

    Really fun to see, and I LOVE that bag. Thanks for the peek inside.

    Reply
13. Ignore me, listen to them. | This is Twenty Eleven says:

    January 28, 2011 at 6:44 PM

    […] He’s great.  Ins­pi­ring without false encou­ra­ge­ment.  He draws on busi­ness cards, often out by him­self at din­ner.  Here is his por­ta­ble workspace: […]

    Reply
14. The lightweight animation studio | The Independent Animator Blog says:

    February 14, 2011 at 12:46 AM

    […] through the inter­net and was inte­res­ted to see that Hugh Mac­Leod had recently pos­ted a piece on his “por­ta­ble stu­dio.” Clearly, he also travels […]

    Reply
15. Anuj says:

    March 14, 2011 at 8:37 AM

    just one ques­tion though..
    how do u trans­form this car­toons into digi­tal image(specially with high qua­lity)??
    scan­ning or pho­to­graph or???

    Reply
16. wakacje Santorini says:

    July 7, 2011 at 12:45 AM

    I haven’t chec­ked in here for some time because I thought it was get­ting boring, but the last few posts are great qua­lity so I guess I’ll add you back to my daily blo­glist. You deserve it friend

    Reply
17. Ouida Jun says:

    August 17, 2011 at 9:13 AM

    Like ever­yone else, I am going to die. But the words – the words live on for as long as there are rea­ders to see them, audien­ces to hear them. It is immor­ta­lity by proxy. It is not really a bad deal, all things considered.

    Reply
18. Cindy Jencks says:

    April 2, 2012 at 11:08 AM

    Needs a bottle of wine and wine glasses.

    Reply