Excerpts. You can download the entire document as a PDF if you want.
(Download the whole thing, all 2.8 mb, here).
I’ve purchased my
last easel
That, of course, is a joke. Those who paint never could
possibly purchase their last easel until (as Stapleton Kearns says) the death
bunny comes hop-hop-hoppin’ along.
Anyway, my most recent easel is a Gloucester-type, made in
China and sold by Jerry’s Artarama (and ASW Express). It's also known as the Anderson easel.
Prior to early 2014, I’d only
seen pictures of this design, primarily in Stapleton Kearns’s blog, http://stapletonkearns.blogspot.com/
. Then in January, I saw the design in person at Stape’s Snowcamp workshop in
New Hampshire. At that point, I knew I wanted it. I played with building my
own, but concluded that I had too few tools, too little skill, and too few hours
to build my own.
The Beauport version of the Gloucester easel, photographed
in one of its natural habitats, 32 inches of New England snow. (The other
habitat? Planted firmly on granite shores north of Boston.)
The Gloucester - for real plein air
painters
When you first meet it, the Gloucester easel is just a
bundle of sticks. This bundle can be arranged into a 3-sided pyramid whose base
is nearly as wide as its legs are tall. This makes it eminently usable (read:
stable, not blown over) in the Cape Ann area, which often experiences high
winds.
Because each of the legs is adjustable, you can set the
Gloucester easel up on nearly impossible sites, including sea walls built from
huge blocks of granite, wildly hilly countryside, or 24 inches of snowpack
during a blizzard. The first two these physical features are found all over Cape
Ann. The third is found in the colony’s Vermont and New Hampshire winter haunts.
Its size and features make it really good for
(a) Tall painters. You can use it to paint at eye level even
if you’re in the NBA.*
(b) Real plein air painters (see previous 2 paragraphs; it
sets up in all sorts of wild sites)
(c) Continuing your athletic development (lots of stretching
and lifting in carrying and setup)
(d) Painting a very wide range of sizes, literally 4 x 5
inches to 4 x 5 feet or more.
(e) Fast setup (55 seconds to set up with the tweaks in this
document; 1 minute 15 seconds to tear down and stow)
*Most
of the Gloucester and Rockport artists were 6 feet tall and over.
