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Artist Ferdinand Brader wandered Pennsylvania and Ohio charging farmers a few dollars for pencil drawings of their properties which he created en plein air. He advertised his services by displaying examples of his work at stores in nearby towns. In the winter, when he couldn’t sketch plein air, he moved into public infirmaries. As a traveling artist from Switzerland, he didn’t have a permanent residence in the U.S., or very much money, so he would also exchange drawings for room and board.
Another result of having little money was that Brader couldn’t afford transportation and instead did a great deal of walking between assignments, carrying all of his art supplies. Many plein air artists carried their supplies to their desired location, but those walks by contrast would have been much shorter, usually from a nearby permanent residence or transportation such as a car or train. Brader’s drawings filled paper sheets up to nearly five feet long, a size that would have been difficult to carry. He also carried a slanted stand to draw on and an old box to sit on. His transported art supplies included a pocketknife to sharpen the dozen pencils he went through each day, erasers, a ruler, and possibly a sketchbook.
Brader produced about 980 drawings from 1879 to 1895, the majority of which were plein air.