Developing a prototype is contant thinking, tinkering and adjusting. I remember when I first developed "Stone Posts", my slate covered light posts, almost 20 years ago. I had concrete shapes all over my backyard, broken ideas, failed first steps. I knew it was the key to getting me out of construction so I continued until I got it right.
I am liking my first easel and tested it out yesterday on a larger canvas, about 3' by 6', steel framed, of course because that is what I do. An artist really needs a lot of space, a lot of supplies and a lot of room to work. I needed more furniture, bigger pallette, more room for more brushes and at least three cup holders for the little yogurt containers I put turpentine in to clean my brushes and stir stuff. So I made an artist's pedestal. Three cup holders, room for 20 tubes of paint and holders for a dozen brushes.
And the steel top is the pallette where I mix the paint.
The advantage of making prototypes is that I get to keep them. I think I will continue this process at least until I can create a perfect pair of them, one a stripped down practical model with all the bells and whistles for about $200 and another, furniture quality, powder coated with embellishments in the $500 range. Over the years I have furnished my whole house that way and on occasion created a product to sell.
The easel itself eventually needs to have foldable adjustable legs or I could never ship it. In the meantime it is perfect, strong and stable. It can easily support a six foot wide canvas.
One added benefit to all of this is that I can learn to paint at the same time!
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| Artist's Pedestal |
And the steel top is the pallette where I mix the paint.
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| Here it is, in my garden! |
The easel itself eventually needs to have foldable adjustable legs or I could never ship it. In the meantime it is perfect, strong and stable. It can easily support a six foot wide canvas.
One added benefit to all of this is that I can learn to paint at the same time!
3 comments:
Wow, Jerry. You always amaze me with your creativity and your final products. Since I often use tin foil for my palette when I work with oils I can see the natural progression to what you have created. I can't see a thing wrong with any of what you have created, this post and the below post. The only thing that immediately came to my mind was the heaviness of a piece. It would both help, especially if windy, and could hurt if dropped on the foot. Shipping would be quite expensive too, wouldn't it? But I tell you, if I had $500 I'd be first in line for your furniture quality work space! Brilliant and I know they will be works of art in and of themselves.
What I'm seeing is a brilliantly colored canvas. Jerry keep on practicing that art and in the meantime you may hit upon something with your creations of easels, Your a man with vision.. I can see it now JC easels all over the place.. BJ
I like your picture a LOT! It has the feel of weather moving and changing as the day goes by.
I also like your easel here. It's heavy enough to not topple as easily as my tabletop one. Trouble is, I don't need an easel right now and seeing yours, I actually wish I did. Do you realize, that steel table with a glass top could be used as a side table when not painting? It looks that nice to me. If I ever get around to doing oil painting, I don't want to be confined to my bedroom so something that looks really nice and not like every traditional easel would be great to put in my living room. Keep up the good work - painting and welding!
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