My Homemade Plein Air Easel

During the last few weeks I have not posted as many paintings as usual on this blog. I have been busy designing and constructing a plein air easel. I started plein air painting with a full size French easel and soon found it heavy and cumbersome. One of the artists I paint with had a half French easel and he agreed to trade with me when I spoke about my frustrations with the full easel. I used that half French easel for a couple of years but then found that easel too heavy. I did some research on the internet and spoke with other plein air artists and decided on the Open M Box. When I went on line to order it, it was going to cost me about $500 US. I thought this was a bit steep so I decided to make it myself. I had never made anything like this before, in fact I have never used our electric drill , hand saw or mitre board before, so it was a learning experience from the very beginning.

I started with thin plywood for the top and bottom, which Rona cut to size for me. I then bought pine trim for the edges, glued this on, then screwed them in place. My husband found locking hinges, which means that they lock in place once you place them. I secured these, then went back to Rona where I got plexi glass cut to use as my pallett. An artist I paint with suggested that I use a seven day pill dispenser for my oil paints. Using this I would not have to carry my tubes, just fill the dispenser before I left home. It works great, once I got used to it and when I get home I put the pill dispenser in the fridge.

When I was using the newly designed easel I found I needed places to put my brushes, so I drilled holes in the trim around the pallett. I needed some kind of closures to keep the box closed however most of the fasteners were too big. I ended up using window closures. I also found that the board to paint on was too low when it sat on the pallett, so I drilled two holes in the lid and the board rests on those. Carrying the wet painting was an issue as well, but I found trim from some large pieces of press board in Rona's garbage bin and I glued these on the back of the lid, to hold the wet board! 

I purchased a tripod from the camera store and that tripod had a quick release plate at the top. Then I needed somehow to connect the paint box to the tripod. Lowes sells a T nut, which is a fixture with threads in the hole, that the quick release fixture  screws into. I mounted the T nut on 4x4" piece of plywood and screwed this on the bottom of the paint box. Here is the finished "work of art"!!!!!!!

I won't  list all the errors I made. This is just some of the things I learned:

Don't try to screw in screws when the drill is in reverse

Make sure the bit fits the screw before you strip it

Make sure the drill is perpendicular to the screw.

When you saw go straight in and out.

Start a screw hole before you get the drill.

Be open to advise.....don't argue??!! (With people who make suggestions)

Spring Flowers from the Garden

The back garden is finally starting to bloom. For the month of May, the weather has been cool, damp and unsettled. This has meant that working in the garden has been slow. It is now the last few days in May and today it looks like we might have sun all day. At 8:00 am it is 60 degrees and we hope it will warm up today so that we can enjoy the garden. My husband has planted many, varied perennials and most are plants that I can cut blooms from, to bring inside. This is my first arrangement of the season. The yellow and orange gerbera daisies were just planted, along with the mauve columbine. Those sprays of lily of the valley are the first to bloom. This is the week for lilacs, so you can see some of those in the bouquet too. This bouquet is truly a Spring Bouquet, fresh from my garden. It is painted on an 11x14 masonite board.

                    

St. George's and the Pilot House

This was painted from an interesting photo I took in the middle of Johnson St. In Kingston. Needless to say I did not paint this from that location, there was too much traffic, so again it was painted from the photo. It is also too cold yet and the sun has forgotten to shine in southern Ontario, so we are again, indoors. The Pilot House restaurant specializes in seafood and their fish and chips are wonderful. It's an interesting little restaurant and pub with a regular, steady following. St. George's is the Cathedral for the Anglican Diocese here and is a very old building. I think the architect who planned our City Hall, also planned St. George's Cathedral. They have lunch hour concerts during the summer that are very popular.

                                   

Grant Hall at Queens University

I enjoyed doing the building with the pansies in front last week, so I decided to paint Hollyhocks beside Grant Hall at Queens this time. This building is where fall convocations take place at Queens and many concerts and assemblies are also held there. When I attended Queens, Grant Hall is where Frosh Week, for the first year students, got started! I remember kneeling in front of second year students and paying them homage, then learning the Queens cheer : Oil THigh!! What great fun initiation is at Queens!, the studying, research, essays...not so much!

                                

The Lone Star Restaurant

This oil painting is also done from a photo as the weather is just not warm enough or sunny enough to paint outside. The Lone Star restaurant is a very popular restaurant in downtown Kingston. It has a large patio in the back which overlooks Lake Ontario and the Holiday Inn. It is called Margaritaville and that drink is their specialty! They do a great Margarita!!

                         

I thought pansies in the foreground added an interesting element, they were certainly more interesting to paint than King St. and the cars that are usually parked in front. I love that artistic license!!

Reclamation

In this painting, I am showing nature in all it's glory, doing what it does best; changing the landscape, as it wishes. Here, a former forest is being returned to swampland. You can see the drowned trunks giving you a glimpse of what it used to be. The swamp seems to be flourishing and healthy. I wonder as I paint, how long it will take for the forest to slowly reappear. 

                           

This was painted on an 11x14 board, from a photograph, inside. Oh I miss plein air!