I travel a lot and have started bringing a painting kit with me on the road. One thing that gives me a challenge is bringing a quantity of distilled water through airline security.

I've heard the message clearly that figure painters shouldn't use tap water, but instead only distilled water. But distilled is hard to get easily at the hotel. Can I use bottled (purified) water instead?

Thanks!

I use tap water and haven't run into any problems, this will of course vary from location to location. If you want distilled water, pop into a garage or automotive supply store and get battery water, 5 litres may be a tad much though. A drug store/chemist might have small bottles of sterile water which should work as well.

Kimmo

If you're getting the paints through, simply find an eye dropper bottle and fill it from your home stash of distilled water. The amount you can carry should be way more than enough for a few paint sessions.

When you travel do you have access to any department stores ? They sell distilled water for use in the steam irons would that work ? . How about one of those water pitchers with the five stage filters , the advertisement on tv shows it would remove food coloring from water , and that's mighty small particles .

AJLaFleche: I do take a small container of water, but depending on the duration and how much I use to fill up the wet palette... and honestly, if I forget to refill between trips .... I'm interested in finding what my options are.

chumpo: The goal is to avoid having to take a trip outside of the hotel. I like the idea of the Brita filtration water bottle or similar, but that goes back to my original questions: Is purified water kosher to use on figure painting. If it is, then I'm good. I don't have to take another piece of equipment. Hell, I'm not even sure if purified bottle water = Brita filtered water.

+1 with Kimmo.

I use tap water all the time with no issues or problems.

I guess if you're concerned, though, a bottle of Evian or whatever the local brand of "boutique" water that's available in the hotel should work just fine, even if you get it out of a drink machine cold and have to let it warm up before using. As often as not there's a bottle or two of drinking water in the hotel room bath or mini bar.

(Although it might cost more than the bottle of the Vallejo paint you're thinning!)

Distilled water will have no minerals or impurities just pure h2o . Purified is the same as filtered . Take your pick . I though they made the filters in small size like 12 oz glasses ? If that's the case then bottled water should be good enough then . I have never used water to thin acrylics always use the manufacturers thinners .

I should maybe caveat my earlier reply:

I do use tap water, but I also mix that with an acrylic thinning medium at about 50:50 and then add about 5% each by volume of acrylic flow enhancer and drying retarder.

I don't use straight water any more as a thinner for air or hand brushing. However, the water I do use is just from the tap.