Travel increases creativity. Making art has become my reason to travel. Over the course of the past eight years, I have found myself exchanging portraits with Siberian snow sculptors, painting murals in international airports, sketching curry- eating camels in India, drawing colourful market scenes across Europe and recording countless exhilarating sights in National Parks in Africa, most recently tracking black rhinoceros, sketchbook in hand... Travel is inspiring. It requires us to think and act creatively. Nomadic artists can take their skill anywhere in the world and, with few materials, can enjoy brilliant cross- cultural communication and follow other interests, such as social development or wildlife conservation. Travel art is a healthy throwback to Victorian-style documentation, first-hand message-bearing in a medium packed with memory and personal information - and it allows its future viewers to travel in their imagination.

All artists should travel with a flexible mind on subject matter. However, if you are determined to catch a particular subject, then do your research and go to the right place for it. Nudist beaches are great if you want to do life drawing!

What kind of an artist are you?

There are three types of artists who travel: the 'painting traveller', the 'artist on holiday' and the 'travel artist'.

The painting traveller travels to see the world, but takes a sketch-book, pencil and paints as an alternative to diary and camera. Filling the pages is highly enjoyable and relaxing, can fill the empty hours spent waiting for buses, creates an essential time-out space apart from fellow travellers and makes for a fascinating record.

The artist on holiday usually has a sketching or painting habit, so has planned to allow room for this. Over the last 15 years there has been a proliferation in enticing art interest holidays and courses worldwide, from luxury to trek style, for all standards and all media, often also offering gallery and museum opportunities for culture vultures. Painting Holiday Directory editor, Anne Hedley, advises potential bookers to read publicity material carefully and ask the right questions about teaching, media, style, accommodation and comfort. Art magazines Artists & Illustrators,The Artist and Leisure Painter publish special holiday issues and have cornered the advertising market for art courses and holidays.

The travel artist is a professional who travels in order to collect images, either as sketches or as source material, for studio work back home, for exhibition and publication.

Expeditions occasionally take professional artists with them to document the trip. Invariably the artist is roped into doing some research work and needs to strike a balance between this and their own work. The Royal Geographical Society should be the first port of call when you're trying to find out about expeditions, though my first expedition was with a university.

Travel bursaries for artists do exist (for artists to develop their own work and take influence from other cultures and craft expertise), as do artist-in-residence schemes abroad (where you are developing your own work in situ) and international commissions (where you have a specific subject to document creatively). The Artist's Newsletter gives details of residencies and travel grant information in each issue. The national grants register in your local library and your regional arts board will also be valuable as sources of information.

Equally, if you are brave enough to go to an unknown country and show your work and say, "I'm an artist", then expect to have incredible adventures, encounter brilliant people and be shown rare sights. Research and relevant contacts are essential, being open to opportunities is more important still. If you are spending a long time in a country it is possible to set up an exhibition. The artist and expat communities will feed you with ideas and contacts, and give you the courage to visit the embassies, NGOs, government offices, businesses and individuals who might be able to help. Financial assistance is unlikely, but help in kind can be overwhelmingly generous. Key cultural contacts vary between countries, according to historical activity and the current directorship. I have found that the British Council, the French Cultural Institute, the British and American embassies, and various countries' government ministries for arts or culture, are all extremely helpful.

Audiences

Whichever kind of travelling artist you are, you will be a performance artist. Whether it's Leicester Square or Machu Picchu, a crowd will appear to watch. Adults and children can keep up an excited chatter of comment and laughter as you build the image, blocking the view and challenging your concentration and patience to breaking point. I find that if you remain unruffled and concentrate on your subject, with a certain amount of polite and jovial view- clearing, people will allow you to continue with your work. If you're lucky there might be a chorus of "ooohs" and "aaahs"; drawing is often seen as magical and treated with respect and awe in countries where images are still scarce. I always hold up the finished item for the crowd to see, however dreadful I think it is. It's rare to get immediate audiences for visual art, so we should enjoy it!

Materials

The amount and type of equipment you need will depend on your medium and how quickly you go through materials. You will need to consider whether you want exhibition-quality materials. Don't rely on being able to find art materials in the country you're travelling to; you can always give away excess materials at the end of your stay to local artists.

I take pencils and watercolour equipment when travelling, with a mass of sketch- books and loose-leaf paper of all formats. I then take the odd diversion into local crafts if I feel the whim (most embarrassingly when an ebony tree was presented to me because I had said I enjoyed woodcarving).

As a rough guide, this is the list of materials that I took for a recent six-month painting trip in East Africa:

I took two sets of watercolours, as I thought these would be difficult to replace. In addition, I find that binoculars, clothing with big pockets, a hat, a good daysack and A1-size plastic bags are vital equipment.

The creative dimension

I feel very strongly that creativity adds a further dimension to the riches of travel. The keen observation needed for taking down visual images gives a heightened awareness of a new environment. You take time to look at detail, recognise the differences, appreciate and gently imbibe the wonders, without judgement.

If you spend longer than a couple of days painting in a place you will soon be regarded as a regular, even as a fellow worker, and you find that you are accepted and welcomed by local people. This brings a great sense of belonging.

Your images (especially portraits) can work for you as passports in tourist-hostile places and you can win people's hearts if you depict subjects of local pride (be it the fish market, the bus stop or the village pump), providing you with an accurate social document.

Lastly, remember that the time you spend is encapsulated in the finished artwork, meaning that in months and years to come you can look at a painting and recall that concentrated timeframe in all its magical detail.

Contacts

The Arts Council of England, 14 Great Peter Street, London SW1P 3NQ (tel 020 7333 0100, fax 020 7973 6590, email enquiries@artscouncil.org.uk, website www.artscouncil.org.uk).

The British Council, 10 Spring Gardens, London SW1A 2BN (tel 020 7930 8466, fax 020 7389 6347, email general.enquiries@britcoun.org, website www.britcoun. org).

The Royal Geographical Society, Kensington Gore, London SW7 2AR (tel 020 7591 3000, fax 020 7591 3001).

The Painting Holiday Directory, PO Box 1 Ponteland, Newcastle upon Tyne NE19 2EB (tel/fax 01830 540215, website www.wavenet.co.uk/users/kirkland/phd).

Asekela Painting Holidays, 14 Model Cottages, Vapery Lane, Pirbright, Woking, Surrey GU24 0QB (tel 01483 480092).

Indian Romance, 46 Masbro Road, London W14 OLT (tel/fax 020 7603 9616).

Paint Away, Indus Tours and Travel Ltd, MWB Business Exchange, 2 Gayton Road, Harrow, Middlesex HA1 2XU (tel 020 8901 7320, fax 020 8901 7321).