Plein Air Easels

[Donald Maier]

This post was copied by me off the Art Challenge to be a separate posting on David modified easel.

Comment by David Cerulli cerullistudio.com 18 hours agoDelete Comment

Here are some photos of my watercolor setup:

Watercolor setup - View 1

Watercolor setup - View 2

Quick-release piece on the tripod head

Quick-release piece on the back of the board. By attaching one of these to each of your drawing boards or pochade boxes, you can quickly change whatever you want to mount on the tripod. 

[Donald Maier]

Here are some photos of my watercolor setup:

Watercolor setup - View 1

Watercolor setup - View 2

Quick-release piece on the tripod head

Quick-release piece on the back of the board. By attaching one of these to each of your drawing boards or pochade boxes, you can quickly change whatever you want to mount on the tripod. 

[Donald Maier]

I like it very much. What does it cost and how much does it weigh? Who is the manufacturer?

Not really sure how those trays are secured to the tripod though. I would like to see how they attach. If they are just set in carefully while the tripod is level in the house with no wind blowing and not being touched, well, that is another thing entirely.

[Donald Maier]

To answer your questions, this is something I put together myself using standard brackets from the hardware store. The boards are masonite hardboard. The tripod is a standard photography tripod, a Manfrotto 718B Digi that I already owned. One quick-release piece came with the tripod and I purchased a few extras from Amazon to use on my pochade boxes. It is fairly stable in the wind, especially if I sit down to work to keep a low profile and use my legs to secure two of the tripod legs. The entire rig is fairly light, since the tripod is aluminum. A similar, more sophisticated (also more expensive) setup is available from http://www.enpleinairpro.com/products.html

[Keith Thirgood]

I use two set ups I built out of various materials. For the summer I paint in acrylic and I use this set up:

I use a light weight photo tripod and attached mechanism I created to hold painting boards and canvases. This rig can be used sitting or standing. It can take a board as small as 5 x 7 and as large as 20" tall. The blue bungie cord provides tension on the sliding board holders.

To hold my brushes, palette, paint tubes I hook a wooden "plate" onto the legs of the tripod. It's simply a board with a cut out to grip the legs of the tripod, as shown below.

I attached magnets to the board, which allows me to use a metal baking sheet as a palette. The magnets hold it firmly in place. I paint the palette with #5 grey to give me a neutral surface to mix on. At the end of every session I paint over the day's dried paint to provide a new surface for the next day. After a few weeks, I soak the tray in hot water and the old paint peels off like a solid film, easy to dispose of.

I also attach a box onto the board to hold tubes of paint, plus a fold out water and brush holder.

This all goes into a backpack, including the tripod, which allows me to easily hike a long distance to promising locations. The entire kit including the backpack, tripod, a jug of water, 20 tubes of paint, plus small jars of medium and a couple of small boards weighs in at 20 pounds, which is easy to carry as the backpack is a good one.

Keith

[Keith Thirgood]

In the winter I paint in oil. For oils I use a different kit. I use the same backpack and tripod, but carry my materials in a pochade. The pochade was originally simply a Richeson paint box. I made some modification to turn it into a pochade.

The paint box comes with a wet-panel holder, that I changed into a resting place for the board I'm painting on. I also added a horizontal brace, to support boards and an aluminum bar that I bent to create a top clamp for painting boards. To keep the pochade from opening too far, I added an external hinge. 

I added a fold-out brush holder as well.

While not quite as flexible as my summer acrylic set up, this arrangement is much easier to set up and break down in the winter, when the snow is around your knees and the temperature is far too cold to expose your fingers for very long.

Keith

[David Cerulli]

Keith, This is great to see. Your use of readily available materials is an excellent example of a sophisticated rig that is cost-effective, as well.

I also use the same tripod for my oil setup that I use for watercolors. My oil painting pochade box is a 9 x 12 Guerrilla Box which I modified slightly to fit larger hardboard painting surfaces. The 9 x 12 Guerrilla Box can be seen at:  http://www.judsonsart.com/pleinair/pc/viewCategories.asp?idCategory=5

By using a quick-release bracket on the bottom of the pochade box (like the one on the bottom of my watercolor painting board) I can easily and quickly set up my painting rig, as well as change from oil to watercolor or vice versa.

I also use a backpack to carry everything, but one with wheels, so I can roll it whenever possible (being 60+ yrs. old I'm very thankful for fairly flat land whenever it's available :)

[Lynne Cunningham]

I have different easels for different settings, it all depends on how far I think I may have to carry stuff.  My smallest setup is slightly modified and I have 1 more modification to make on it.  I like it so much because all my oil paints and panels will pack inside, it can travel on a plane and it's truly selfcontained.  It'll fit in a backpack.   Occasionally I'll sit at a picnic table and paint with it and it stays steady.  

It's a Mabef pochade box, the 11" x 14" sketchbox, with a universal camera tripod adapter screwed to the bottom.  The tripod is my camera tripod doing double duty - a lightweight really inexpensive Velbon CX 300.  Together these weigh only 7 pounds, 1 oz. which is really fantastic if you're hiking or walking a distance.    

The next thing modification I'll do to this is to have a custom palette made for it because I like as much palette surface as I can have and I don't need the thumbhole opening on the wooden palette.  Weight:  7 lbs .  Costs:  Tripod, $13.  Pochade, $65. plus shipping cost.  Universal tripod adapter from Judson's :  $18.  So for under $100 a sketchbox setup that will travel anywhere (boating, hiking, in an outdoor cafe, etc.)  and is very little fuss - I like it so much.  Recently my husband and I were exploring around, I thought we may be hiking in so I brought it.  I wound up painting just 50' from the car but I was reminded how much I like this little setup.  

Happy painting to you, Donald and everyone in 2012!