# Portable easel box



## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

Nice, but not my cuppa. It's a box, so if you it you will have to sit it on something. And, unless it is fairly high, you will also need something to sit your butt on. If you are out and on the go, it is going to be difficult to find these. I seldom paint, but when I do, I do so at home, where everything works out for me. Out, I sketch, and if I take more than one sketchbook I carry them in a bag of some sort, I can easily sketch holding my sketchbook. Going out to paint, I would much rather have a small/light easel, and some type of folding chair/stool - then I could paint almost anywhere. This would be good at home as I see it, on a table, where you could pull up a chair. 
https://www.instructables.com/id/Portable-Easel-Box/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

Put the support bars on the inside and put dividers in to hold paint, brushes and materials. Something very similar has legs that fold out for painting outdoors (Plein Air). This design would be for indoor use, particularly in a room that is only occasionally used for art. My wife has taken over the sunroom for her studio. Art's everywhere.


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## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

DesertRatTom said:


> Put the support bars on the inside and put dividers in to hold paint, brushes and materials. Something very similar has legs that fold out for painting outdoors (Plein Air). This design would be for indoor use, particularly in a room that is only occasionally used for art. My wife has taken over the sunroom for her studio. Art's everywhere.


I wouldn't want one with folding legs, if you are not on a flat surface, it would rock. In fact, if used one very often indoors, I wouldn't. It would take up room on a table, and if you ever wanted the space, you would have to take it down, put it up, repeat. I would rather have a small table top easel, and a box, with a handle for the paints. Thinking on it, I wouldn't want this at all, I'd much rather have an easel, one where you could adjust the height for different size canvases.

Don't know what type paint your wife uses, but all I use anymore is acrylic latex, get it in the small cans. I get the basic colors, red, yellow, blue. Supposedly you can mix all colors from these, but it ain't so, so I also get white, black, dark green, and dark blue. With the white you can lighten the dark colors. I keep them in tall, straight, medicine bottles. No matter how long they have been in the bottles, it is still easy to twist the tops off. I use smaller pill bottles for custom mixing colors. I've tried both oil and water based tube paints, costly, and mostly a pain to use. The latex paint works well for me.


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## DesertRatTom (Jul 3, 2012)

My wife is good with both oil and color pencil. She's done several still lifes in pencil on canvas that look for all the world like a classic renaissance painting. She's learning to draw figures--I keep pushing her to put people and/or animals in her paintings because they are so much more interesting. The attached picture is of a heron standing in water. I made the frame. She also did an amazing post industrial painting of a mud flat with the tide out that is my favorite. The other picture is a seashore, after she added the walking figures. 

How about posting a few of your paintings? I think we'd all enjoy seeing your work. My wife paints most of the time in here studio, which is our sunroom. I think she'd like a nice shed outside with lots of windows, light, heat/AC.


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## DaninVan (Jan 1, 2012)

If any one's interested in exploring colour theory, this book is excellent!
https://www.michaelwilcoxschoolofcolor.com/product/blue-and-yellow/


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## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

DesertRatTom said:


> How about posting a few of your paintings? I think we'd all enjoy seeing your work. My wife paints most of the time in here studio, which is our sunroom. I think she'd like a nice shed outside with lots of windows, light, heat/AC.


Hahaha It's been so long since I painted an actual painting I don't even recall what it was. Don't even have any photos. Did some landscapes, then found more fun things to do. Do have a poor picture of a drawing I did in maybe 1965-66, all I know for sure I was in Germany. Don't know if that can be made out or not.
After that it was my corporate iggle. Still looks as good as first made, which was around 1966.
Then it was some yard art for my older son. Some etching. And wooden banks. And my license plate. Odds and ends here and there, but no pictures. A lot more fun making stuff out of wood.


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## JOAT (Apr 9, 2010)

That corporate iggle was made in about 1996, not 1966. Wish I had remembered. Visit my older son about every Sat, and his son has a toy box I made about 20 years ago. Someone painted the sides of the black, for whatever reasons, definitely not me. But the ends are frogs. If I recall right, one is smiling, and the other has sort of a sour look. Hand drawn, hand painted. Stuff like that is sort of like painting with numbers, without the numbers. If I had thought of it, would have taken some pictures of it.

Toy boxes like that are very simple to make, partly because I don't make them with tops. Multiple reasons for no tops. A little kid has enough of a problem just getting toys in the box, let alone having to struggle with a lid too. And lids have a tendency to drop on hands or heads - and don't say put on hinges that catch or lover slowly, with a top, and two kids, chances are one kid is going to be in the box, and the other kid sitting on the lid. Faster to make too, with no lid. Once the kid gets older is the time to put on a lid if you want, then can use it as a seat. Been a long time, but think it was all put together with only glue. Glue strips in the center. It started life in a day care, where my now ex daughter-in-law's mother worked. After several years of that, it went to my grand-daughter, after years of that, when to my grandson. And it is still holding up very well. Really need to take some pictures of that. Hmm, got a almost new grandson now, think maybe I need to talk the older son into passing it over to the younger son, for his kid. Saw him today for the first time. Got some pictures, I hope. Kid was running around like you wouldn't believe.


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## papasombre (Sep 22, 2011)

Hi, Tom.

As I have read, you have made a lot of frames. I liked very much the one with the heron.
I bought some frames at Dollar tree to be used with my granddaughters pictures but several of them arrived broken and then I realized that they were made out of some kind of plastic material. So I decided to make my owns frames. 
Please, would yoe mind to give some hints to make frames like yours?
Thanks in advance.


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