Saturday, February 22, 2014

Been so long...

I had to guess how to create a new entry.

So, I figured it out.

New reports coming

While I was enjoying Stapleton Kearns's Snowcamp in January, for the first time I came face-to-face with the Gloucester easel. Stape of course had his, and fellow classmate James Cook had one as well.

There are two on the market. The first is a fine, hand-made version from Tobin  Nadeau, the Take-It-Easel, available from http://www.takeiteasel.com/index#nice6 Both Stape's and James Cook's were Take-It-Easels.

The second is a version in Chinese elm or beech from Jerry's Artarama (or ASW Express), the Beauport, available here

Finances dictated that I go with Jerry's offering. As many have said, the Beauport needs some tweaking to make it fully serviceable. I began with an excellent tweak first posted by Dan Corey... and then went mental.

Twelve tweaks later, my Beauport is a beauty. I finally ran out of things to hack, alter, add or otherwise allow me to bond with my new tool for painting.

I've created a full write-up of the flurry of tweaking that began with Dan's fix. The spirit of tweaking then drove me on and on. I'll post a summary soon. The full tome will be available as a PDF.