What do art students use for bags to carry supplies around campus?

Question

I am attending a pre-college workshop at New Hampshire Institute of Art this summer and I have so many supplies I have to lug around campus! I'm trying to figure out what kind of bag/size of bag I should bring around with me but I'm having trouble chosing. It has to fit atleast two 9"x12" sketchbooks and a number of pencils, paintbrishes, a paint palette, tubes of paint, and other art supplies. What do normal art students use?

Answer 1

Normally, it is a cloth bag that can be bought at Hobby Lobby or Michaels or sewn up, that will hold the drawing pads, canvas, and other flat stuff and a separate box or bag for the smaller stuff. Traditionally, artists put all the paint stuff in a briefcase like box that carried it loose or had internal partitions and carried their canvases and pads in a portfolio that as you might guess from the name was a folded piece of cloth (canvas) with handles for carrying . The artist's box gave a working surface on top, sometimes had legs. For the painter, it allowed holding the palette with wet paint on it for reuse (as it could not be put back in the tube) This is irrelevant and impossible with fast drying acrylics.
I keep a smaller cloth bag with 9x12 drawing pads and a zip lock bag with black and colored drawing pencils and erasers and have a separate larger bag for bigger pads, canvas board and packages of pastels, etc., that I use less often.

Answer 2

I'd recommend a fishing tackle box - seriously. This was pretty popular in my college -- great for those paints. But I think perhaps you have too much stuff. Why two sketchbooks? I got into the habit of having a "base" for much of my stuff (even the car works) and just attaching papers to my carry along masonite easel. I also got it down to just a box of drawing supplies. I did drawing outside, so I didn't want to be loaded down.