Painting studio
When I first became ill, the medical folks suggested I try to control the nerve damage by doing some cross modal work. So on the theory that mixing visual and tactual modalities might help I have been fooling around with paints. One of the challenges was to have an easel which would not move or vibrate due to the sometimes violent tremors in my hands and arms. The easels I saw in art stores were too flimsy (and very expensive). So with some help from friends, I built my own. You can too:
The picture at right shows my easel. It stands roughly 7’ high (metric anyone?), has three movable shelves for paints and brushes (the third shelf forms the bottom of the canvas holder), and can hold canvases 8’x6’ with ease... and without any shaking. Yet it can be folded easily and wheeled (it sits on lockable furniture wheels 2” high) to another spot.
I used pine 2x4s for the main structure, with 2x2 pine for the rest of the structure. The easel has the three shelves - one for paint, one for brushes, and one to hold the canvas. These, which you can see in the picture at right, are made of 6”x3’ 1/2 pine shelving. The base of the easel (the thing in the picture with a paper towel showing) is also made of 6”x3’ 1/2 pine shelving.
Behind the painting is a 2X4 center piece which tilts from 50 to 90 degrees. The curvilinear beam just above the painting is on a 1x2 vertical piece on which it slides to hold the painting in place. Drilled 3/16” holes (which are hard to see in the picture) run up and down on the vertical 2x4 pine on either side of the painting. They are simple slots into which the shelves can be quickly placed or moved to accommodate different sizes of canvas.
The easel stands 6’ high, with a center 2x2 sliding beam (which is just visible in the picture above the curvilinear beam). The sliding beam extends to 7.5’. This means that when I lower the shelves the easel can hold a canvas as large as 8’ x 6’. I get canvas from the local university which has a terrific discount if I buy in bulk. I make my own stretchers out of 2x2 spruce, which is very inexpensive at the local lumber yard. Due to the tremors in my hands, stretching canvas used to be impossible. But I have come up with a technique which may help you too: I use a staple gun to staple one side of the canvas to the stretchers, then a series of small clamps to clamp the opposite side to a piece of 2x2 wood. I then simply stand on the stapled side, attach a small pulley to the clamped side, and stretch the canvas up to the frame. I then staple that and repeat for the perpendicular sides. I hope that makes sense?
Anyway, the easel is on wheels which lock in place. The whole thing is very solid - I can lean on it while painting. And even with this constantly shaking body it does not not move around. It easily wheels out the door of my little studio into our back field when I want to paint outside.
Fun stuff.
