When the Leaves Fall

My Summer was a good one.  May was beautiful and unseasonably warm.  I got my garden in early and then June came, colder than normal with too much rain.  The July weather was more like June normally is and the garden got off to a slow start.
   July was when I woke up. My cancer was officially "gone" and after a three year hiatus I decided to participate in a Summer Art Show so I was pretty busy making steel creations for that event.  It was pretty successful and meeting new clients with new commissions kept me busy for the rest of July, all of August and September and until about a week ago.  The Eugene area went 118 days without rain, a "World Record" for this area and I finally got some pretty nice tomatoes!
   Now the rains have started, almost a full month late, late October becomes the weather of late September.  It is colder too and all of the green turns to Earth tones, the deep orange, amber and yellow of Fall, an ever changing pallet with the seasons.
   Traditionally this is my slow season for metal work.  I am busy with new construction and major house renovations, the creation of gardens or open areas that need a focal point.   That work slows down this time of year.  It is dark in the morning and dark in the early evening.
   I read more this time of year, during the Winter months and until I can plant saved seeds in my greenhouse in the early Spring.  I hunt for books.  I am a hunter of books and I have bagged a few good ones in my time.  Yes, I read cheap dime novels which cost me a buck at a local thrift store and I love them.  I can on kicks though or tangents and for a while will read a bunch of books on particular subjects.  Last year it was Art History, my attempt at understanding the transitional art world and this year it seems to be American History, an attempt in discovering why we are where we are!
   I paint in the winter.  Retirement is different from working all of the time.  Money doesn't come in like it used to, obligations are smaller and there are more hours in the day.  I made my shop smaller and created a "studio", 10' x 20' next to my office.  Clean and heated, like a mini-gallery.
   I feel like that guy on television, "I am not a painter but I stayed in a Holiday Inn last night"!  I know nothing and am comfortable with my lack of knowledge. I made some lucky garage sales finds: a bucket of paint brushes, over 200 of them for $40. Two giant rolls of canvas, one 5' x 200' and the other 3' x 100' for less than $100.  and a bucket full of tubes of paint for $20.
   I made steel easels, selling most of them but keeping three for myself and I made steel painting stations that I keep near the easels.  I frame my own canvas with steel.  I can't have wood in my metal shop!
   So all of the "stuff" is outside my office door and calls me:  "come and play with me"!  Sometimes I do.

Steel Easels

My garden trellis easels did well at the "Art in the Garden" show but what really perked people's interest was the steel easels that were really meant to be used for artists to hold their canvas.  Funny, how I could be so wrong (like it has never happened before!).  I didn't even bring my very best easel to the show, just thought it was the wrong environment.  We talked a lot about easels and plein air painting and the flimsy aluminum easels that blow over in a small puff of air and can't hold a canvas steady.  So in the back of my brain I am thinking all of the time about this.  My goal is to eventually build that thousand dollar, perfect and detailed custom easel but maybe along the way there is some room for a really nice strong and portable easel?
   So I made one!  It comes in three pieces for easy shipping but is assembled with only two bolts.  I think it might weigh about 30 pounds but the mast is a separate piece so each section is about 15 pounds and there is no assembly to install this mast.  It just fits!  I think it could survive a sixty mile wind and probably 20 miles with a decent sized canvas.  It is adjustable and can hold a canvas as large as 56 inches tall and most any width.  It has a nice brass medallion to lock in a canvas to the mast.
   This won't be a get rich quick scheme but I can sell these for $200 as long as they remain fun to build.

Shipping should be around $30 so that is doable also.  It is not an item that could ever be retailed, too many fingers in a retail pot for that to happen.  Did you know that, on average, for every $100 you spend at retail the product costs $15 to manufacture?  Everything else is "value added" because of wholesaling, shipping and handling, profiteering all along the way.
   I will make five of these and take them to the next show and see what happens.  I think this is an idea for someone younger with more ambition but I know there is a market for these.  I enjoy making the prototypes.
I like the research and development part, then I will leave the manufacturing part to others.
   This one does not lay flat, Sherry, I need the bench model as a counterweight for that to happen.

Outside!

2 posts today!  I found some great old growth fir in my shop and made the bench covering with that.  It is looking bad that all of my easels are photographed with the same canvas, but it is a nice size, five feet tall and thirty inches wide.  I took this bench easel outside to take some photos and see how it works.  I love it.  It doesn't have all of the bells and whistles, the cup and brush holders nor a place for paper towels, but it is strong, steady and comfortable!  One more for my show room/studio.  It is getting crowded!

   Now what will I do?

There Are Over 700...

Easels on eBay.  From little table models to the big 'H' frame Studio Easels and lots and lots of aluminum framed, light weight tripodal ones that fold up and  come in a case.  I found two really nice Victorian models among the bunch and none that excited me.  It struck me as odd to discover these tools of artists and realize how plain they were.  I can imagine simple could be good if they were strong and well built but these were all Chinese Knock offs, all pretty much the same and nothing to be proud of.  Where did we get the notion of who could build the lightest, cheapest, flimsiest easel?  I realize that there may be times an artist might want a traveling easel but as a major piece of furniture in the studio?  There really should be more to choose from.
   When I began welding years ago I made hundreds of trellis's, different sizes and styles, shapes and purposes. I began by going to the local garden supply places and garden art nurseries to see what they had.  They all had the same stuff, as if their buyers all stopped for lunch at the same time at the same show and bought together to get the best deal.  These were import trellis's, the kind that fit into a plain cardboard box and they couldn't support themselves let alone a vigorous vine attempting to grow up their sides.  I am thinking the easel makers are the same manufacturers.  It is the same stuff built to the same standards.
   There are always flaws with prototypes but I am on a roll now.  My little studio is jam packed and my easels spread out into my garden.  My beans will learn to paint soon.  I seem to be dreaming easels, big, small, tall and, thanks to Sherry, FLAT!  Crimson Leaves tells me she paints flat and sometimes I do too.  Why couldn't I make an easel that had the proper vertical angle but could easily tip and lock into a horizontal position?

Wouldn't that be cool?  This would be easy to do for a 12 inch by 12 inch canvas but I am thinking "Artist" here, something Big, something Grand!  My latest invention in the easel world will easily hold a five feet tall painting and gently lay it flat and lock into position!
   I'll finish it soon and get it into the garden to get some better pictures but you can get the idea from these taken in my shop.  The circular steel rim will be a frame for the seat.  I will find some exotic hardwood for this.  I am getting older and the idea of sitting down while painting is becoming more attractive to me.  In its normal position the canvas is in front of the little bench which is attached to the easel, but for display the canvas can be turned 90 degrees, placing the bench to the left of the painting.
   This is not a knock down foldable comes in a package type of easel.  It would be more like shipping a motorcycle but people do that, don't they?  I don't know what the limit is, what boundary that can't be crossed.  I once on a lark took a three thousand dollar trellis to a Home Show and sold it Three Times!
   I am having fun and that is the main thing!  I can always make my studio/showroom Bigger!

The Easel

I am always trying to reinvent the wheel. I wanted an easel with everything close by so I have been reinventing. There is no market for these, I looked them up on Ebay and easels are pretty much a dime a dozen, but really they are not that good.  Unless you get a big H frame studio easel they are flimsy and well, have that made in China quality to them.  Not too inspiring for an artist who hates imports.
   This easel has a lot of attachments, one for paper towels, another for a pallet, little rings for cup holders and brushes, both vertical and horizontal while drying and even a little scabbard that will hold three pallet knives! What am I missing?

   It is my first foldable easel and the mast slips into place so it is in two pieces but it has the strength of steel, not its light weight aluminum counter part.  It is adjustable and will hold a canvas as small as 20" and as big as five feet! I have put a six foot wide canvas on it and it has no wobble at all.

   It is not always a good thing when an artist likes his work.  I kept fiddling with it and adding details and then I liked it so much I spent $75 to have it professionally powder coated.  It is a clear coat, letting you see the steel but giving it a feeling as soft as silk to the touch.

The little rosette with the brass acorn nut moves up and down and is designed to capture the top of the canvas.  It is threaded and will tighten down  to a quarter of an inch or open up to a full 2".

   I added a half dome of copper at the top of the mast for the artists signature!  Clear coat over copper has become almost a trade mark of my work.

My Studio has become like a car lot showroom of easels, from Volkswagons to BMW's. Maybe one day I will learn to paint!