top of page
The Portable Creative Kit Archive is an online blog resource that documents and celebrates creative portable kits — from professional artists to everyday makers.
Portable Creative Kit Archive
Malaika Razak's Portable Creative Kit
Malaika Razak is an artist, illustrator, and educator
In 2025, Emily asked Malika if she would like to test my (Emily's) Portable Collage Kit as part of my research into how people engaged with the kit. Malaika really enjoyed using the kit and was inspired to make her own personal kit. This is brilliant, as my project is all about inspiring others to use portable kits.
What’s in your kit?
Chinagraph pencil, rubber, mini scissors and mini stapler, mini glue, a black pen And my portable printer
How did you make or develop your kit, or where did you buy it from?
I saw that you (Emily) had most of these things in her kit, so I went and got some things. I knew my main tool was going to be the chinagraph pencil and then I wanted to have a black ink pen too as well as scissors for the collaging - my kit is basically the same as Emily’s but I got mine from flying tiger and Amazon
How do you use your kit?
I print out a section of a picture for example people in a crowd, then I draw out the rest of it. I use it to create mixed media drawings.
Creative outcomes — what have you made using your kit?
I have now got 2 mini sketchbooks from my two trips to Paris, one is with Emily and the other sketchbook is with me
Where do you use your kit — on location, outdoors, when travelling, etc?
I try to use my kit on location, so I’ll sit down at a bench or cafe and print out the pics I need, stick them down and get sketching. I always start my sketch outside, then finish it later when I’m in the hotel or on a train
Any memories or stories about this kit you’d like to share?
It just makes me so much more aware of beautiful things in my surroundings! I never would have noticed many things before I actively thought and looked around to see what beautiful things and places I wanted to draw!
In 2025, Emily asked Malika if she would like to test my (Emily's) Portable Collage Kit as part of my research into how people engaged with the kit. Malaika really enjoyed using the kit and was inspired to make her own personal kit. This is brilliant, as my project is all about inspiring others to use portable kits.
What’s in your kit?
Chinagraph pencil, rubber, mini scissors and mini stapler, mini glue, a black pen And my portable printer
How did you make or develop your kit, or where did you buy it from?
I saw that you (Emily) had most of these things in her kit, so I went and got some things. I knew my main tool was going to be the chinagraph pencil and then I wanted to have a black ink pen too as well as scissors for the collaging - my kit is basically the same as Emily’s but I got mine from flying tiger and Amazon
How do you use your kit?
I print out a section of a picture for example people in a crowd, then I draw out the rest of it. I use it to create mixed media drawings.
Creative outcomes — what have you made using your kit?
I have now got 2 mini sketchbooks from my two trips to Paris, one is with Emily and the other sketchbook is with me
Where do you use your kit — on location, outdoors, when travelling, etc?
I try to use my kit on location, so I’ll sit down at a bench or cafe and print out the pics I need, stick them down and get sketching. I always start my sketch outside, then finish it later when I’m in the hotel or on a train
Any memories or stories about this kit you’d like to share?
It just makes me so much more aware of beautiful things in my surroundings! I never would have noticed many things before I actively thought and looked around to see what beautiful things and places I wanted to draw!
Iain Bleakleys Portable Kit
What’s in your kit?
Scraps of words and collages in a little pouch my friend made me, a mini notebook or folded zine, nail scissors and glue. I have a mini watercolour kit my partner bought me which is about 3 inches long and the brush has a water capsule and there is a wrist band to dab the brush on and a mini palette too as part of that kit.
How did you make or develop your kit, or where did you buy it from?
I developed a backlog of collage scraps...I've been very inspired by Sophie Herxheimer who I did a residency with a few years ago, she's always got an arsenal of cut up words and materials to hand. My pal Mai who I met on that course made me a pouch and mini notebook as a leaving present when I went traveling to keep words n material in as I move. The watercolour kit was advertised to my partner on insta n she got me it as a gift. I use it all the time even when I'm just at home making stop motion animation vids although I use some bigger brushes as well in that case.
How do you use your kit?
Poems, sketches, mixed media collage, dancey stop motions
Creative outcomes — what have you made using your kit?
The stuff on my IG bru_creations kind of. Many a zine. A collection of found receipt poems called "receipt wisdom"
Where do you use your kit — on location, outdoors, when travelling, etc?
Public transport, on holiday, on benches sometimes. Usually I gather when I'm out and then create when I'm back but after using Emily's kit I'm drawn to just do it all at once a bit more.
Any memories or stories about this kit you’d like to share?
I guess that's some memories above. I also have books I use as source material and there's usually a good story around where I found it. Also that friend is going traveling to Mexico now, it's gone full circle (or half circle)...so I gotta get her a kit!!
Scraps of words and collages in a little pouch my friend made me, a mini notebook or folded zine, nail scissors and glue. I have a mini watercolour kit my partner bought me which is about 3 inches long and the brush has a water capsule and there is a wrist band to dab the brush on and a mini palette too as part of that kit.
How did you make or develop your kit, or where did you buy it from?
I developed a backlog of collage scraps...I've been very inspired by Sophie Herxheimer who I did a residency with a few years ago, she's always got an arsenal of cut up words and materials to hand. My pal Mai who I met on that course made me a pouch and mini notebook as a leaving present when I went traveling to keep words n material in as I move. The watercolour kit was advertised to my partner on insta n she got me it as a gift. I use it all the time even when I'm just at home making stop motion animation vids although I use some bigger brushes as well in that case.
How do you use your kit?
Poems, sketches, mixed media collage, dancey stop motions
Creative outcomes — what have you made using your kit?
The stuff on my IG bru_creations kind of. Many a zine. A collection of found receipt poems called "receipt wisdom"
Where do you use your kit — on location, outdoors, when travelling, etc?
Public transport, on holiday, on benches sometimes. Usually I gather when I'm out and then create when I'm back but after using Emily's kit I'm drawn to just do it all at once a bit more.
Any memories or stories about this kit you’d like to share?
I guess that's some memories above. I also have books I use as source material and there's usually a good story around where I found it. Also that friend is going traveling to Mexico now, it's gone full circle (or half circle)...so I gotta get her a kit!!
Portrait of actress Rosalind Russell making a phone call, wearing her famous gold chatelaine on her
Portrait of actress Rosalind Russell making a phone call, wearing her famous gold chatelaine on her wrist.
Ramage, F. (1958) Portrait of actress Rosalind Russell, 21 August 1958 [photograph]. Keystone / Getty Images. Available at: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-actress-rosalind-russell-making-a-phone-call-news-photo/505808858 (Accessed: 12 July 2025).
One interesting early example of a kit is Chatelaines. Chatelaines were a unique functional and portable yet decorative item, derived from the French for "lady or mistress of the castle" (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.), which is linked to their similarity to the look of a hanging set of keys. To which chains with attached items, such as keys, miniature notebooks, scissors, and sewing accessories, were attached. Practical yet fashionable, so much so that they were
“often referred to as ‘equipages’, meaning ‘equipment’ (The Queen’s Chatelaine Bag, 2024).
They were very popular, and later they were described to be more decorative than useful, so much so that Punch Magazine even featured them in one of their cartoons titled "The Chatelaine: A Really Useful Present" showing a woman showing off a wholly impractical huge Chatelaine that has oversized items reaching down to the floor. However, when practical, these items resolved the seriously impractical issue of the lack of pockets that often affected women’s clothing during this period and the subsequent periods.
Ramage, F. (1958) Portrait of actress Rosalind Russell, 21 August 1958 [photograph]. Keystone / Getty Images. Available at: https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail/news-photo/portrait-of-actress-rosalind-russell-making-a-phone-call-news-photo/505808858 (Accessed: 12 July 2025).
One interesting early example of a kit is Chatelaines. Chatelaines were a unique functional and portable yet decorative item, derived from the French for "lady or mistress of the castle" (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, n.d.), which is linked to their similarity to the look of a hanging set of keys. To which chains with attached items, such as keys, miniature notebooks, scissors, and sewing accessories, were attached. Practical yet fashionable, so much so that they were
“often referred to as ‘equipages’, meaning ‘equipment’ (The Queen’s Chatelaine Bag, 2024).
They were very popular, and later they were described to be more decorative than useful, so much so that Punch Magazine even featured them in one of their cartoons titled "The Chatelaine: A Really Useful Present" showing a woman showing off a wholly impractical huge Chatelaine that has oversized items reaching down to the floor. However, when practical, these items resolved the seriously impractical issue of the lack of pockets that often affected women’s clothing during this period and the subsequent periods.
Emily Evans Portable Collage Kit
A portable collage kit developed by myself and loaned to various artists.
Visiting new places or seeing new things always compelled me to want to enjoy these moments or record them via illustration and I wanted to do it in collage! In 2019. I walked to the Norfolk Coastal path whilst testing a large portable kit, collecting textures from the nature I was walking through.
I met a walker, she showed me her very small portable mono print kit, which she had taken on the pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago .As a result, then decided to make my own much smaller kit.
I started to create a much smaller kit made up of a small printer, a chinagraph pencil, glue, scissors, mini sketchbook. I wanted something to keep everything organized and something to allow me to work easily when there was no surface to lean on.
I created a laser-cut device to hold my kit and to lean on during making, where every piece could be attached to this device via elastic and secured, but with holes where the pencil or scissors could be held when you were working. After testing this kit, I found these little things helped. I got into a rhythm when I was making, and it allowed the process to be streamlined without the distraction of losing things. This kit has then subsequently been given out to different creatives for them to test and use, so it can be improved.
One of the most important parts of this kit was a black and white mini thermo printer! For myself, this small printer presented the opportunity to print and collage with photos live in the moment.
In Art Therapy, the materials are often referred to as the art therapist's ‘third hand’ (Tamar Pesso-Aviv MA et al., 2014). It suggests that different types of materials, such as pencils, can create different types of engagement.
Messy materials such as watercolors or pastels are described as ‘regressive’ as they require much more control (Liebmann, 2004). As such, more ‘regressive’ materials such as pastels, paint and charcoals are often used in Art Therapy to help process through feelings of anger and lack of control in safe environments where the Therapist can help divulge and understand the underlying causes of such distress.
Collage can be interpreted as an interesting middle ground between such ‘controlled’ and ‘regressive ’ materials. A process that challenges control to an extent that develops divergent thinking and increases people’s ability to manage a lack of control and gain positive experiences from a lack of it via collage.
Visiting new places or seeing new things always compelled me to want to enjoy these moments or record them via illustration and I wanted to do it in collage! In 2019. I walked to the Norfolk Coastal path whilst testing a large portable kit, collecting textures from the nature I was walking through.
I met a walker, she showed me her very small portable mono print kit, which she had taken on the pilgrimage, the Camino de Santiago .As a result, then decided to make my own much smaller kit.
I started to create a much smaller kit made up of a small printer, a chinagraph pencil, glue, scissors, mini sketchbook. I wanted something to keep everything organized and something to allow me to work easily when there was no surface to lean on.
I created a laser-cut device to hold my kit and to lean on during making, where every piece could be attached to this device via elastic and secured, but with holes where the pencil or scissors could be held when you were working. After testing this kit, I found these little things helped. I got into a rhythm when I was making, and it allowed the process to be streamlined without the distraction of losing things. This kit has then subsequently been given out to different creatives for them to test and use, so it can be improved.
One of the most important parts of this kit was a black and white mini thermo printer! For myself, this small printer presented the opportunity to print and collage with photos live in the moment.
In Art Therapy, the materials are often referred to as the art therapist's ‘third hand’ (Tamar Pesso-Aviv MA et al., 2014). It suggests that different types of materials, such as pencils, can create different types of engagement.
Messy materials such as watercolors or pastels are described as ‘regressive’ as they require much more control (Liebmann, 2004). As such, more ‘regressive’ materials such as pastels, paint and charcoals are often used in Art Therapy to help process through feelings of anger and lack of control in safe environments where the Therapist can help divulge and understand the underlying causes of such distress.
Collage can be interpreted as an interesting middle ground between such ‘controlled’ and ‘regressive ’ materials. A process that challenges control to an extent that develops divergent thinking and increases people’s ability to manage a lack of control and gain positive experiences from a lack of it via collage.
Emily Evans Portable Collage Apron
Wild Collage was a research project inspired by the walking tours of George Borrow and the writing of W.G Seabald. I travelled across the North Norfolk coastal path using a mixture of ritualistic walking and taking the ‘Coast Hopper ‘Buses. Equipped with a utility apron that was created in Collaboration with the clothes designer James Taylor the Apron was designed to hold materials and tools so the wearer could being a portable making kit. My lone walk explored in situ mark making and creating a textures using the Portbale Collage Apron. This project was awarded as a research project as the Gordon Peter Pickard Travel Award which supports art projects that involve travel.
Nathaniel Hone with a porte-crayon, National Portrait Gallery
Nathaniel Hone with a porte-crayon, National Portrait Gallery (London) (2013) ‘The artist’s porte‑crayon’, Artists, their materials & suppliers, National Portrait Gallery [online]. Available at: https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/research/programmes/artists-their-materials-and-suppliers/the-artists-porte-crayon (Accessed: 12 July 2025).
Some artists’ kits before this were bespoke or handmade by the artist and had to hold pigments as powder. An anonymous English painting manual often referred to as The Art of Drawing an English Painting manual, which first appeared around 1731 includes describing a “portable ivory case for colours” — as well as a ivory snuff-box–sized board with cavities for dried pigments, a drawing instrument (“porte-crayon”), and compasses.” (Anon 1731)
The Porte-Crayon was a popular tool that could allow artists to take otherwise messy charcoal out with them and protect it from cracking. In F.W. Fairholt's A Dictionary of Terms in Art (1854), the porte-crayon was described as an 'implement of brass or steel for holding the chalk or crayon in sketching, to give ease and firmness to the touch, as well as to protect the fingers from the soil of black chalks'. (National Portrait Gallery, n.d). It was described in a packing list made by Constable in about 1826 (John Constable: 1975).
Some artists’ kits before this were bespoke or handmade by the artist and had to hold pigments as powder. An anonymous English painting manual often referred to as The Art of Drawing an English Painting manual, which first appeared around 1731 includes describing a “portable ivory case for colours” — as well as a ivory snuff-box–sized board with cavities for dried pigments, a drawing instrument (“porte-crayon”), and compasses.” (Anon 1731)
The Porte-Crayon was a popular tool that could allow artists to take otherwise messy charcoal out with them and protect it from cracking. In F.W. Fairholt's A Dictionary of Terms in Art (1854), the porte-crayon was described as an 'implement of brass or steel for holding the chalk or crayon in sketching, to give ease and firmness to the touch, as well as to protect the fingers from the soil of black chalks'. (National Portrait Gallery, n.d). It was described in a packing list made by Constable in about 1826 (John Constable: 1975).
bottom of page