The Gurney sketch easel is complete!!! Painting has taken a little bit of a back seat this week as I finally decided to make a James Gurney style lightweight sketch easel. He has a fantastic video showing you the details and many more details on his blog
Art Materials For Lightweight Sketching
The materials didn’t cost very much themselves. The wood was $15 and I have enough to make 4 more easels if I want to :-). The hinges were $10 and the little nalgene 2oz water jar was $6. Small neodymium magnets hold the water pot and the palettes to the easel. They cost around $10 and I have plenty left over. The easel fixes to the tripod using a t-nut and quick release plate which cost around $12.
My biggest purchase was the set of travel brushes that sit handily over the sketchbook for easy access. This was $40 but I suspect will get a lot of use.
Here are all the art tools laid out on the finished easel. The little paint palette is an ancient Daler Rowney watercolor palette with teeny quarter size pans. It’s highly portable and fine for outside sketching. The sketchbook is a pentalic sketchbook in the larger size. The smaller 5×8.5 version fits on more neatly.
Tools Needed to Make the Easel
I did spend a fair bit more on tools to construct the easel. I needed special forstner drill bits for the magnets and a spade bit to recess the t-nut for the tripod. Then there was glue, some clamps, epoxy putty for the hinges, screws, and oil for wood finishing (I found wood stain in the garage). I suspect after some use I’ll be making another one. Maybe I’ll try one a little bigger but who knows.
An Easel Shot with Sketch!
Here it is with a shallow tin as a palette which I’ve sprayed with white enamel paint. Good for gouache I think. This also shows the smaller Pentalic sketchbook which is still big enough for fairly detailed sketches.
Some Action Shots of the Easel
Here are some more shots! Can you tell I’m really pleased with myself? For its size and weight it really is a useful little thing. Can’t wait to try it out in earnest. Many, many thanks to James Gurney and all the wonderful helpful people on the facebook sketch-easel group
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