A panel-support accessory for $10 easel

When we received a commission to paint two fairly large, horizontal landscape paintings for the renovation of the Stein Eriksen Lodge Deer Valley conference center renovation, I decided to construct a framework that could be clamped, horizontally, to the $10 easel and provide backing for the panels while I worked on them.  I might have painted the two landscapes on the landscape easel, but glare is a perennial problem with that easel and I needed it as a drying rack so that I could work on both paintings simultaneously.

Upon finishing the framework, I chose to store it under the studio loft by suspending the framework from the ceiling there.  Suspension involved simply the installation of eye-screws mounted into the ceiling, corresponding eye-screws mounted into the edges of the framework, and then hooking the ends of a metal S-hook through each set of eye-screws.

When it came time to start the brushwork on the two paintings, I discovered that the $10 easel was wide enough to fully support the panel size; that I really didn't need a framework, but by then I wouldn't have wanted to even think of doing without the ceiling-mounted framework.  I used it to clamp light fixtures anywhere I wanted, to run electrical cords up and out of the way of the work area, and to temporarily clamp other things for storage.  It even baffled the harsh light from the fixture-cans mounted into the ceiling.  And, besides, I liked the way it looked.

The framework played no other role in the project that precipitated it.  I often find that when I receive a creative prompting and act on it, I also tend to form expectations, justifications, and other ideas about it.  To do so is very dangerous.  I find that my ideas about such things are as likely as not to simply be wrong.

Of course, if I ever need to paint a really wide painting, I'm ready.

The framework hangs from the ceiling under the studio loft.  Den Kommende Vinteren is on the $10 easel, just off to the left of the photograph.  Den Kommende Våren rests on the landscape easel at the right of the photo. Visit us on Pinterest to see more photos of this and other stages of the Stein Eriksen Lodge Deer Valley conference center project.

Tags: 2013, Inspiration and creativity, Tools supplies and operations