I thought best to get this book in order to study without needing the laptop to study by okay.
I will read it whenever, okay.
Thanks for reading.
UPDATE:
I must admit it's hard to read the Daily Painting book, the text is a lot smaller than I expected. It's quite a strain on my eyes. But I have no choice. I'll keep going.
I hopes there'll be a new edition with bigger font type, such as Point 12, instead of 11 or 10 as I think the book currently is. I checked the book, trying to find the part where it says what the size of the font type is, that makes the text.
I really had expected the text to be easily readable, I have no idea why it's smaller than I thought. What was they thinking? I know, it's to save on space, etc etc. But still, plenty of room for text to be bigger, lots of margins all around, smh oh well
Sorry for the weeks in delay. I'd been working, building my easels, and resting a lot, my shoulders aren't what they used to be, okay. Anyway, no rush, is there, eh :D
H-Frame Easel
I had built a homemade H-Frame Easel, based on some bloke's design I saw on some website... I'll find it, then listed it here, you might like it.
Found it: Rob Spitz's Homemade H-Frame Easel for under $40, but this is youtube video, I seen his website showing this H-Frame... I guess his site is shut down, oh well.
Anyways, I built my version of H-Frame, and man, it was HEAVY. I manhandle the damn thing, and then tried to work with it. I know, based on his version, it looks easy to use, but I uses makeshift woods, whatever I could fit out of scrap.
It's chunky and took up so much space, I literally stubs my toes on the foot piece pretty much most times if I don't watch where I'm going! Smh, so out it goes... well, not yet.
The pieces on the front is difficult to move up and down, with bolts on two sides, thin bolts, hard to grips the wood, it's all chunky and difficult and time-consuming.
The H-Frame Easel stayed there for months, years... really. I hardly uses it. The few times I did, it doesn't makes me wants to paint, though I tried. I fought the bolts, the canvas holders, shifting this way and that way, wasting my time. So annoying, but I hardly realises it, there is a much simpler easels that is a joy to use. But what I saw out there is so expensive... what can I copy, modify, to fit my needs? I don't blame Rob, though. His design is really for roomy houses, it's not right type of easel for my room.
I just have to find the right easels that I could build, affordably, without too much expense, plus the pieces got to fit right, that's the important thing, not too much sawing and hammering and drilling so much... just simple way to build without requiring a proper workshop, something I could do in my room.
Easy $20 Easel with Concrete Stand Combo
First one is the big easel, based on the Patrick Lawrence's Easy $20 Easel, which, when completed, would go on the wall, but as I don't have walls, being as my walls are covered with bookshelves, so I remembered I have a Concrete Stand, with a pine wood post standing up from the bucket-shaped concrete, so I thought I would combined the two. I calls it "Concrete Stand".
So I found it, dusted it off, and took the white painted sign off that I had attached to the post, with the black painted words, "CHEAP BOOKS FOR SALE", which I had originally designed a few years ago, to sell my books, but before I put the Concrete Sign Stand outside, I found out I could send my boxes of books to Fishpond.com.au at the time, so the Concrete Sign Stand was left in a dusty corner, and now I have a need for it.
I attached my version of Easy $20 Easel onto the Concrete Stand, and wow, what an easel it is!
I enjoyed piecing together what I needed and putting it together, it was fun.
All I did was use what was available. It's not exact measurements like 3 of 6 foot 1x4s, 1 of 2x4, etc which was meaningless to me. American measurements are weird. :D What is 1x4? One inch x four inches? I measures that... that's 25 mm x 100 mm, (2.5 cm x 10 cm), but these never matches the ones from my local hardware store.
What I used was from Bunnings, a local hardware store, for about $2 or so per piece of long 6 foot wood, things like that, plus bolts with wingnuts, lots of washers, etc. I better check the details...
The wood, 3 pieces of 6 foot long, x 7 cm wide, x 2 cm thick.
Two of this lengths would be the vertical lengths.
I cuts the 3rd length made into pieces, two pieces for canvas/panel holders: 45 cm length, x same 7 cm wide, x 2 cm thick.
I added a strip of sandpapers along the canvas/panel holders, it makes for gripping the canvases or panels better, I think. I saw this idea somewhere, some one came up with it, so I don't have that credit. I'll find that one and listed it here, so you can see, okay.
And two small pieces for holding the two 6 foot lengths pieces. 15.7 cm x 7 cm x 2 cm. These goes on top and bottom of the two 6 foot vertical lengths, holding them together, while the bolts will rides up and down the middle, simple.
Just like the one on Patrick's Easy $20 Easel, easy peasy. It's really big, though. Tall!
Found it on Bunnings: Timberlink Australia 70 x 19mm Treated Pine Blank Picket - 1.8m - $4.50 per piece. Expensive, I know. It's why I took so long to carefully measures everything to be sure I don't wasted money messing up. Fortunately I can say this is better than the huge heavy H-Frame Easel that I created before.
Not easy to navigates Bunnings website, tsk. I figured out their terminology. I calls it "wood", ha ha.
The bolts: Very thick bolts, 80 mm long, 11 mm thick, and the cap is rounded, so it'll not be impeded by the travel up and down the vertical lengths. The nuts are wing nuts, big, to fit on the 11 mm thick bolts.
Awesome. Pricey too. Reason why big bolts, to holds up big canvases I plans to paint one day. For now, small canvases is fine. The name is to practice, and get used to easy easels that works easily, smoothly, and don't wastes your time fiddling when all you wants to do is tightens the bolts, and paints away, simple as that.
I got the bolts off the drawers in the Bolts Aisle, as I calls the area. There's a Nails Aisle next over, eh. Wire a few aisles down. Anyways, I walked back and forth, testing this and that. The wing nuts were in packets, so I gotta opens them and tests them on the bolts, until I was sure I got the right ones.
The choice is few, so I just grabs what fits. Plus washers, don't forget washers. I uses two per bolt, so it's fine to get six washers, or more if you prefers.
I realises too late that the easel is big, tall, and I find it's hard to work in front of it, hardly any space because I attached a tray in front for the palette to mix my paints... the size of the tray with piece of pine wood screwed on for the bolt on the easel to hold it in place is big.
The size of the tray, I reuses a piece of pine wood, 60 cm length, 9.5 cm wide, and 2 cm thick. And a piece of MDF board, 60 cm length, x 30 cm wide, x 6 mm thick.
I screwed the MDF board onto the edge of the pine wood. It makes a L shape, and I drilled a thick hole in the middle of the pine wood, where I would attached the thick bolt on the big easel onto back of the pine wood, and tightens it up, making a rigid tray.
It's awesome! Never have I seen it like that before. If only I got room to move around in front, but I don't have room, darn it, so I took the tray off, and puts it aside in a safe place to be used later when there are room to to be had.
I needed a tray to mix my paints, how do I do that? There's hardly any room to stand in front of it to comfortably mix and paint...and I can't drag the concrete stand back and forth just to create some room, it's exhausting... I had to think of another way to paint easily...
My Plein Air Easel
I came across Plein Air Easels, and when I saw them, I suddenly realises I have my camera tripod from my Starscapes pack, which I hardly uses, (except for that time when I uses it to films my LocTote Flak Sack in the early days a few years ago when I was accepted for their LocTote Affiliate Program, which was my first, totally awesome, making money for a little while, but it dried up and since then no commissions for years.) so with the Camera Tripod, I can have my own portable Plein Air Easel, and it'll be easier to use. I went and found my camera tripod.
The camera tripod is fantastic, which means I don't need to buy one. I already have it. Odd, no?
Everything finally came together, I can visualises having this easel and it'll make things easier.
All I had was old pieces of wood I saved, just in case, there's always some uses for old pieces of wood. Then I pieces together what I needed to build my Plein Air easel.
First, I built what is called the, "Panel Holder", as I based my design on Coulter's design and at first I worked with thick wood, measuring, figuring, and I put it away for the next day, I realises while looking at it that it's too thick, I needed it to be thin, not too thin, but thin to be light enough to carry.
I went to Bunnings, (a Hardware store in Australia), and found my wood that I liked, thin, strong, light. Oak, I think.
Tried to find it on their website, can't find it. I'll find it one day and will note down the name, measurements, etc okay.
The Panel Holder, the Length: 64 cm, x 40 mm, x 8 mm. And the two pieces for the holder: 22.5 cm x 4 cm x 8 mm. Two more for smaller panel boards: 6 cm x 4 cm x 8 mm. That's it.
I marked out where I needs the bolts to go sliding up and down the length, and the hole where it will be attached to the plastic device that I can locked onto the camera tripod. Simple!
First you punches a nail along the length to mark the places where you intended to drill the holes. Once you got that done, use a drill bit for wood, with pointy end, that will find the punched marks, and you simply drills through, easy peasy.
Then I gets out the chisel and a small hammer, and carefully chisels along the drilled edges, cutting away as much as I could.
With a knife, I scrapes along the drilled length, getting rid of what I calls bumps, the parts where the drilling can't get at, like Vs, cutting them off, flattening all long the lengths, on both sides.
Then with coarse sandpaper, sanded along the edges until I got everything as smooth as I could get, then uses finer and finer sandpapers until I'm satisfied with what I have, a lovely panel holder.
I did the same with the four small pieces, until I got the bolts to fit them, then sanded them, until everything's smooth.
It took up until almost midnight before I was finished.
I uses a different kind of bolts for this one.
I realises that a normal bolt are hard to use the wing nuts on, because the bolt would turns around too easily. I needed a way to hold the bolt in place while tightening the wing nuts... I found it, finally.
It's called "Wing Screw", funny that, lol. I would have thought they'd be called "Wing Bolt" or something. I found the right Wing Nuts to fit the Wing Screws, and that was it, plus added washers, eh.
The ones I uses is Wing Screw, for manual handling. M6 x 50 mm, and Wing Nuts to fit. And lots of washers.
I had to get one more bolt, for the camera jig thingy, so it'll fit when I fits the thingy onto the camera tripod thingy... I calls it "thingy" as I haven't found correct names to fit them, one day I'll find out okay. That's it, everything fits perfectly.
My Palette Box
The palette box, based on the Art Box And Panel design, the Coulter Easel is superb.
I was led to the Art Box and Panel website by Carol Marine in her ebook I found called, "Daily Paintings", and her site is here https://carolmarine.blogspot.com/. Awesome.
Reading her book helps me realises what I can do, and so this is how I came up with my Plein Air Easel.
First Study then Copy, Modify, Redesign, to Fit Your Requirements
I studied the existing palette boxes, Coulter's palette boxes, and Carol's palette box, in her photo of her Plein Air Easel photos in her Daily Painting ebook.
I studied them over and over, working out what size I needed the box to be, until I understood how to put it together. It wasn't easy at first. Having never experience these things personally, and it's hard to actually handle the pieces in person, all I had was approximations of what I could see and build.
Once I build the palette box, I understood why each pieces are needed that fits onto the camera tripod's legs, and it's a really awesome design, it blew my mind.
Then I sanded the pieces, until they're as smooth as can be. Then I painted them with water-based varnish, two or three coats, or more. Looks darn good.
Pine wood better than MDF boards
The palette box... well, I didn't like the way the MDF boards looks on my palette box, it just looks... weird. I wanted something better, and I thought of my pine laths boards. I decided to find my pine lathe boards, that I made with thin lengths of pine wood, glued and clamped, and left out in the atrium, forgotten for quite a few years, until now. I dug them out, took a board, cleaned the dust off, incredible, looks great.
I measured, realises I can cut exactly twice, no need to mess around with lots of cutting.
One board became three pieces.
Then I took off the old MDF off the box, places the pine boards on palette box frames, then went out back, dug out my belt sander, cleaned it up, sanded the boards, until I got them nice and smooth, then went back to my room, worked on fitting the boards until I got them to fit, then screwed them all onto the frames, with brass screws, looks spectacular.
Sanding, Sanding, Sanding...
Lots of sanding, oh lots of sanding, lots of sweat, lots of drinking water, until it's all nice and smooth, and the wings folds and fits and everything's just as good as can be. With constant trying out on the camera tripod legs until I worked out how to cut the pieces for the angle woods and puts it all on, and sanded them all over again, fine sandpaper, and finer sandpaper, until it's all as smooth as can be, then I paint the box with the water-based varnish, several coats, then I laid in plastic sheets for the inside... to mix oil paint on, okay. Don't really wants to use Linseed oil on the inside, don't want the yellow stuff to contaminates my oil paints.
All Done!
Then it's all done. I can lay out the Plein Air Easel, and paint away so easily! Awesome!
Or I can hooks the palette box on the big easel and it'll fit, alright, it's great. I like it.
Now I'm looking for the photos I had made, where are they? Found it. I'll just use one photo, no need for lots and lots of photos, eh. I pixelated my background, the easel is what's important, not the background okay.
It's awesome, no? Now I got my own Plein Air Easel, eh :D
Although I have my bigger Easy $20 Easel on Concrete Stand, so I got two easels, and it wasn't that expensive, maybe all up, some long wood I had to buy, a few bucks, the bolts with wings, those costs a bit more, the varnish, that's $20 for a small tin, used to be $12 bucks couple or so years ago, odd. Anyways, I got two easels and I can paint any time I like. Totally awesome, yep.
Exciting
And it's exciting! I get to think about what to paint and just play, have fun, for an hour a day, and get really into the process of it.
Then take a pic and uploads onto here, and chart my progress, awesome!
I have lots of ideas, eliminating some and trying out others. Okayyyyy....
Dedication to my Fiancee!
I am indebted to my fiancee who I adored and supported me through my endeavours, and hopefully I'll make a better painter than I was before. Thank you, my beloved fiancee, Cindy. <3
No Rush, Have Fun, Enjoy Process
There is no rush, though, I'll take my time, testing this or that, trying things out, having FUN... that's the most important thing, to make painting FUN, not a chore, not a boring thing to do, but FUN FUN FUN... the best word is to be FASCINATED with the process, to be deeply involved in the creation of something that helps me grows as a great artist, as all artists must.
Thank you for reading! Have a great day (or night)!
Hello there. I'm Alexander Skobeleff. I'm going to be practising painting, small painting, what they call, "Daily Paintings" every day. This, the book says, helps artists to break out of the painting doldrums some would finds themselves in.
I have been having trouble trying to paint, due to small space, confidence, and the like. So I thought, since I found this Daily Painting idea, I'll try it, and see how it goes. For now, I'm sort of working stuff out, little bit at a time.
I've created sheets which I painted white gesso on, from several sizes, waiting for them to dry, then ironing them flat as much as I could without burning them. They're perfect to practice on without spending too much. I have other sizes too, but that won't be for a long time.
25 A5 white gesso sheets.
1 A5 orange painted sheet.
4 A5 black painted sheets.
6 A3 white gesso sheets
4 A3 white gesso on black sheets.
29 A2 white gesso sheets.
Paper 148 x 210 mm A5 sheets
Paper 297 x 420 mm A3 sheets
Paper 420 x 594 mm A2 sheets
I'll be focused on small daily paintings, to get myself into the mindset of painting, exploring the paints, the brushes, etc. Creating whatever that comes out of my hands.
If, one day, my paintings becomes better and better over time, then perhaps I may be able to sell them, if you really like one or more of my paintings, that would be greatly appreciated if you let me know, thanks.
But one thing for sure, I'll be using whatever materials I can use, adapted for painting on. I'll not be using "ready made" canvases, boards, panels, and the like. Instead, I'll make my own. Like the gessoed sheetes I created listed above, I'll uses recycled materials to make my own canvases, and the like.
MDF boards 453 x 600 mm
Stretched Denim Canvases 110 x 170 mm to 230 x 417 mm
I already made several canvases out of thin pieces of wood as canvas frames and washed denims I stapled to the frames, they came out looking great. Then I gessoed them all. I neglected to take photos of them before I gessoed them, sorry, next time I will. I must say these canvases really looks good. I looked at them long and hard and wondered what to paint for months before I came across Carol Marine's Daily Paintings and it seemed like a grand idea to do this.
Frames ready for canvases
Several boards ready to be painted asap
Certainly I would never have come up with this idea until I reads what the book says, and like that, I knew I could do it, and so I took steps to buy certain pieces of wood, some wingnuts, bolts, and washers, and built a $20 easel, and attached it to my... for want of a better word, concrete stand, that I made a few years earlier to hold up my "BOOKS FOR SALE" sign, and it fits perfectly, everything came together just right.
I'll show the $20 easel, the concrete stand, and such like.
The original $20 Art Easel on youtube, and the website. This bloke is helpful with his design.
Instead of attaching my easel to one of my wall, (which I have no walls since every space of my wall is covered with my bookshelves that I made years back) I uses my concrete stand, which is basically a piece of wood about 5 feet long, 2 inches thick, which I covered with long nails and bolts on one end for the concrete to hold on, which I inserts into the bucket of concrete and let it set for a week, and it worked very well.
By attaching the $20 Art Easel to it, it stood up straight and true, and hardly moves much, although seeing how I can move the easel I realises I should have made the bucket upside down, so the base would be wider, instead of at the top, so it wouldn't wobble a bit. Might make a new one one of these days, though. For now, it suits my purposes, though.
Mostly everything I have I adapted to whatever I can use them for. I got lots of thin pine wood, so I'll re-purposed them as frames to make canvases on, and I'll uses whatever material such as denim, from old jeans, or shirts, or whatever, to make canvases with. I'll be recycling and then when its' all gone, I hopes I'd be very good at painting by then, enough to make money and find better canvases, perhaps those panels Carol Marine talked about in her book, that'll be nice, a luxury, I guess.
I'll also make posts about some affiliate referrals I might make here, maybe, maybe not. Haven't earnt a thing from them in years, but who knows, this is virgin territory here for me, and I might as well try, and if you likes one or more of these products I refers to, perhaps I might get a commission from the companies that I represented, if you choose to buy a product from them, much obliged if you do.
