fbpx

Tag: easels

Posted on

Gifts for the artist you love

Santa Claus, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 framed.

Today I’m thankful for the people who support artists, so here’s a shopping guide that will make their holiday gift-buying easier.

Let’s talk about brushes:

Several years ago, my students bought me a set of Rosemary & Co. brushes. My biggest regret about my lost painting kit is that those brushes were a gift from people I love, but Bobbi Heath and Karen Ames have both sent me spare brushes. That adds another level of gratitude to my brush roll.

Brushes are where quality matters, but they’re pricey, so they’re where most artists flinch. Why not buy a Rosemary & Co. gift card? That means they’ll have to pull the trigger on a brush, as Rosemary doesn’t carry much else. Gift cards come in odd increments because it’s a British firm, but plan to spend at least $130 for it to be useful. They make oil, acrylic and watercolor brushes, so only pastelists need miss out.

One of the nicest gifts I’ve ever received was this set of Rosemary & Co. oil brushes.

Isabey is a French company that makes very nice bristle brushes that stand up to hard use. If your artists have no big brushes, buy a bright, flat or round anywhere between a size 10 and 14. Those big boys are the ones artists never get around to buying.

It’s easy to wipe out tiny brushes. This small bright and even tinier round are perfect for detail. Princeton has rebranded these brushes as Snap! But they’re the same excellent quality that the series 9700 has always provided.

I have a collection of very expensive watercolor brushes but the ones I continually grab are Princeton Neptunes. This nifty travel kit would make any watercolor painter happy.

This Catalyst wedge is lots of fun with any heavy-body paint.

Eric Jacobsen, that incomparable mark-maker, got me a Princeton Catalyst W-06 wedge. You can’t be precise, so it’s a great tool for loosening up your brushwork. In fact, the whole series of these wedges are fun. They’re meant for any heavy-body paints, including oil, acrylic and encaustic.

If I could carry only one watercolor travel brush, it would be an Escoda Reserva Kolinsky-Tajmyr Pocket Brush. It’s compact, comes in a protective tube, and makes an outstanding range of marks. A close second at a lower price point are the Da Vinci Cosmotop Spin Travel Brushes. A hat tip to Heather Evans Davis for introducing me to them.

Gouache is a versatile and portable medium that’s appealing to artists in any medium. I did this when I ran out of painting boards while stranded in Argentina.

Gouache and other colorful things

Many painters are interested in experimenting with gouache, and for good reason-its results are completely on-trend. Schmincke Horadam is a fabulous, high-pigment brand, but a starter set runs a hundred bucks. Instead, you could make up a primary-color kit of Titanium White, Lemon Yellow, Scarlet (Pyrrole Red), Helio Blue (Phthalo), and Ivory Black. That’s everything necessary for limited-palette painting. M. Graham has a primary-color starter set that’s significantly less expensive and nearly as luscious.

A great combo for mixed medium experimentation is oil paint and oil pastels. Sennelier is the clear quality winner in oil pastels. A landscape or iridescent starter kit will give your artist enough information to know if he likes the combination.

Similarly, you can add chalk pastels to watercolor or acrylic paintings. My preferred soft pastel is Unison; a starter color kit is enough to experiment with. I love NuPastel for hard pastels; a set of 24 will provide a full range of color options. Of course, watercolor pencils are fun for everyone. I like Staedtler Karat Aquarell and Faber-Castell Albrecht Dürer Magnus, which are fatter than usual.

Cheap pochade boxes are a false economy. This field kit was pricey, but it’s put up with an incredible amount of abuse, including saltwater, sand, deserts, heat and freezing temperatures.

Easels: the good, the bad, and the ugly

If your painter struggles with a knock-off Gloucester-style easel, you can make him or her ecstatic by buying the Take-It Easel, which costs twice as much and is worth every penny. After breaking one of the cheap ones and then buying a second one that arrived warped, I shelled out for the real thing. I’m glad I did.

As a teacher, I see a lot of pochade boxes and easels, and can steer you away from the bad ones as well as recommend good ones. I’ve had a version of the Mabef Field Painting Easel for decades and recommend it highly as a good starter tool for plein air. It has a swing head so can be used for oils and watercolor. The Leder Easel is simple, effective and light-weight. Tell Ed I sent you and he’ll give you 10% off (and, no, I don’t get a spiff for that).

I use an EasyL Pro on a carbon-fiber Manfrotto tripod with a ball head. It is very lightweight and has survived incredible abuse (including saltwater), but it’s not a cheap combination (and thank goodness it wasn’t in my painting kit when that went missing.) I’m getting an EasyL Lite soon, which will replace my home-built aluminum pochade box for backpacking.

For studio work, I swear by the Testrite #700 Professional Studio Easel. I use its little brother, the Testrite #500, for students. The difference between the two models is in the maximum size canvas they’ll accept. They’re aluminum so they don’t warp or crack. I’ve had them for decades. The only maintenance I’ve ever done was replace parts that wandered off.

My traffic cones ride in the back of my truck, but if you drive a smaller vehicle, you’ll want the collapsible kind.

Miscellany

The danger of “park and paint” plein air is other drivers. One of the nicest gifts I ever received was a pair of safety cones. This set of collapsible ones are reflective, come with LED lights, and will fit easily in a car trunk.

I have an Artwork Essentials umbrella, but I’m equally impressed with the Shade Buddy. However, for many situations, I find a beach umbrella works just as well.

I have more than one taboret cabinet but my current favorite is this simple six drawer rolling cart. Mine sits under my teaching desk and holds all the art supplies I might need while teaching. Watch for discounts; I got mine on a Woot daily deal.

If your artist is starting to frame and sell work, the Fletcher FrameMaster point driver will save him or her a world of aggravation. Mine is decades old and still works fine.

Mary’s soap. Just wait until you see the movie.

I’d be remiss in not mentioning Rowan Branch Brush Soap. My daughter Mary makes it for me, and I’ve shared it with enough other artists to know that it really works.

This page contains affiliate links for some but not all products. If you choose to make a purchase after clicking a link, I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you. Thank you for your support!

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

Posted on

Monday Morning Art School: easels to avoid, and ones to love

Sadly, neither the Prius nor this easel are still with me. The easel snapped in a windstorm with one too many weights hanging from it. The Prius died of old age after 300,000 miles.

“I have been painting for two years now, primarily plein air and in acrylic,” a reader wrote. “While I’ve gotten by with a makeshift DIY easel, do you have any suggestion for a great beginner’s easel that can handle larger formats (up to 20×10)?”

I’ve written about how Google drove me toward inexpensive and fatally-flawed Meeden pochade boxes. Cheap boxes that don’t work are a false economy.

When you’re working very big, there’s no substitute for a Gloucester-style easel.

For years, I used Jerry’s knock-off of the Gloucester easel. Mine finally snapped in a high wind. The replacement was so warped that I can’t recommend it, unless you’re willing to do the work to remake the wooden parts. If you want this style easel, you need the Take-It Easel.

The Gloucester-style easel is invaluable for large work or windy days, but it’s too heavy for me to carry very far. Weight is the big reason so many artists use the Park-n-Paint approach to plein air. It’s easy, but it’s limiting.

Double-demoing with my Mabef easel to the left, my Easy-L box to the right.

Many people have been given a French box easel by loving friends or relatives. If you have one, by all means use it, but don’t voluntarily inflict one on yourself. They’re heavy and difficult to set up. Pochade boxes are lighter and nimbler.

Guerrilla Painter boxes are beautifully made, with rock-solid hardware and a heavy plywood shell, but they weigh a lot for their mixing area. I have a 12X16 Guerrilla box that is so tough I could drive over it with my truck without denting it. I never use it; it weighs too darn much.

For most fieldwork I use an Easy L box, which I have in two sizes. I’ve used them for several years, and the hardware is as tight as it was when they were new.

Terrie Perrine working in pastels on her Leder easel.

I also have the Leder easel, which at $159 (not including the tripod) is reasonably priced for a solid, stable, painting system. It can hold a canvas up to 24″ tall, which is large enough for most plein air work. You must buy your own tripod and paint box, but that has some advantages. You’re not hauling around a heavy wooden box, because you can pair it with a Masterson Sta-Wet palette box, which is far lighter . It’s also a great system for pastels, because it allows you to use your existing pastel box. In fact, you can flip between media quickly. (Ed reminds me that if you use the code Carol10, you’ll get a 10% discount.)

For watercolors, I love the Mabef M-27 field easel.  It can hold a very large board and the angle adjusts very quickly. It’s usable for oils and acrylics, but balancing a palette on its arms is sometimes an exercise in frustration. I’m on my second one; the first one died after decades of abuse.

I’m tough on my gear. This was an accident, I swear.

The New Wave u.go pochade is a simple, elegant design, although it’s really only suitable for smaller work. Its mixing area is very shallow; that’s a problem if you use lots of paint. However, the palette does lift out so you can freeze it, and it’s lightweight.

Strada makes the only aluminum pochade boxes that I know of. That’s a pity, because aluminum is less prone to moisture damage than wood. It doesn’t result in much weight savings, however.

En Plein Air Pro is well known for their watercolor system, which is lightweight and durable. Their newer oil-and-acrylic easel is equally nice.  It can take a canvas up to 22″ high. I have had one of their tripod trays for years.

The Meeden watercolor field easel is a lightweight easel at a very low price. The tripod has a narrower stance than a photo tripod, but it does fold down into a backpackable kit. I don’t think it would stand up to long-term regular use, but it’s sufficient for the occasional painter. The drawing board can hold a sheet up to 12″ high.

Rebecca Bowes won Best in Show in the 10X10 show at the Red Barn Gallery in Port Clyde. Although I’m a member of the gallery, I had nothing to do with the jurying.

Like many of my students, she’s loath to admit just how accomplished she is. Next time I tell one of you, “That’s really good,” I hope you recognize that I’m not just blowing hot air.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: