A Pochade Box

Pochade refers to a French word meaning pocket, and what artists called small paintings that could be carried in one's pocket. A Pochade Box is a very small portable easel.

Most painting locations I work with are easy to access by car or a short walk. Longer distances with the easel, palette, and brushes are unwieldy. I decided that one of these boxes might come in handy in these situations.

I looked into purchasing a pochade box, but found the basic models too expensive for what they offered. I decided to make my own. I didn't have a lot of time on my hands, so I forgoed building one from scratch. Instead, I went looking for a ready made box that could be adapted easily to the task.

I found this child's tool box at a local second-hand store. With some modifications, it would do a nice job.

The box was stripped of all of its parts and two slots were glued inside.

I cut a small cheap palette to fit inside the box.

A piece of plywood was glued onto the underside containing a threaded fitting. The threads will mate with a tripod mount, so that the box can be set up on location.

There are a couple additional parts to add to my box. For one, the top half should have some kind of locking hinge, so that it can be held open at a desired angle. Adding clamps to hold the artwork in place, would be useful as well. This box can accommodate small pictures under ten inches.  Overall, I'm pleased with the results, and the final product was not expensive.

New Portrait

This portrait was a quick oil-sketch, done at the Art Students League of New York. The ASL hosts an open painting session on Saturdays throughout the day. It is relatively cheap, has good natural light, and the models are usually excellent. This model had an interesting intense look,  supplemented by a strong build.

New Studio, Part II

Getting good light out of any new studio can be difficult. Good light in this case refers to the quality, not quantity of light in an art studio.

The ideal setup for natural light would be a high-facing north window. This provides the simplest, most stable light source throughout the day, avoiding direct sunlight. Having reliable, stable light and shadow patterns is incredibly important when it comes to figurative work.

My studio was not the ideal. On one wall there was a large window facing the southwest. On the roof,  several large skylights flooded the studio with light. Direct sunlight flooded the room at various times of day. The challenge was to figure out if I could work around the studio's limitations. Long term, I could consider finding a better workspace.

To deal with the window, I built a small wooden frame to inside. The frame was covered top to bottom with tracing paper, blocking direct sunlight helping to disperse the light. There was nothing I could do about the skylight.

To test things out,  I hired a model and did a quick charcoal sketch. This was done in a single shot one morning.

The results were only acceptable. This confirmed my suspicions that I was not going to be able to get the kinds of light that I wanted from this particular studio.

One alternative I explored was constructing a light box. The concept of the light box was to artificially mimic the good attributes of natural light. The light source would be multiple daylight temperature fluorescent lights. A simple box would house and support the lights, and a frame would elevate the box up in the air.

I threw together a quick prototype, which was a challenge without easy access to power tools.

Here is a shot of the light box fully ablaze. This box uses a pair of cool daylight temp grow lights. These are compact, bright for their size, and are designed to be easy to hook up together. The mouth of the box is covered with vellum to help disperse the light.

The frame is constructed from PVC tubing and is about 8 feet tall. DIY grow light stands are built a similar way, that was my inspiration.

The light produced by the box was decent but nothing to write home about. It did share some positive attributes of natural light, and had some unnatural qualities I did not like. Perhaps with some tinkering and a real box I could improve the concept further.

New Studio

Over the past month I have been spending time in New York. One of my objectives upon my arrival was to locate a proper painting studio, hopefully equivalent to the one I had back home.

Before my departure,  I mixed and tubed as much paint as possible. I wanted to have lots of paint at my disposal.

I brought along the majority of my studio supplies and equipment.  This picture was taken before I had put things together.  I built the box to support what I hoped to be future portrait subjects.

The studio includes rooftop access. During the summer months I usually make my own linseed oil from scratch. This requires ample sunlight, and the rooftop is perfect for this task.

My approach to my craft is very hands on, as this blog will attest. I had concerns going in that I would not be able to maintain these practices in a much smaller,  urban environment. So far the techniques have proven to be very adaptable.

Levitan

Isaac Levitan (1860-1900) was a Russian landscape painter, considered one of the best of the 19th Century. His family was of Jewish origin, during a period of organized political animosity under Alexander II. Levitan was able to overcome this based on the strength of his art, achieving support and patronage.


Levitan is recognized for his ability to convey a strong emotional feeling or tone in his works. They are often called "mood" paintings to define this characteristic. This quality of his work is what I connect with most strongly. he has over time become one of my favorite landscape painters.


His paintings are subtle in their language and message. Many works do contain political content, however Levitan never overtly reveals his message, it require knowledge of context.


I have never had the opportunity to see Levitan's work in person. The majority of his paintings reside in various museums and private collections inside of Russia. This has also made it quite hard to find good reproductions and western-published books on him.

Shungite

I'm currently trying out a selection of different black pigments, looking for one with just the right properties for my work. Shungite is a unique form of graphite mined in Russia. It shares many qualities with other carbon-blacks and is very intense.

The shungite proved to be surprisingly hard to grind. I suspected that it would not be that difficult, while handling the sample, black easily came off on my fingers. I would recommend purchasing the material in pigment form. Natural Pigments is the only western supplier that I know of that carries shungite.

The image above consists of shungite on my palette, after having been ground and mixed with linseed oil. I have tinted the black with some lead white, to get an idea of its undertones. Shungite appears to have a sightly cool cast.

Helen's Pine

 Helen's Pine
Oil on Canvas 10" x 8.5"

Private Collection

This small and simple picture was inspired by a pine tree situated very close to my studio. I walk past this area all the time,  coming and going many hours of the day. At a certain moment in the afternoon,  the light falls on this otherwise nondescript tree,  and it comes alive.

Summer is usually a challenging time to paint outdoors. The light is harsher and more direct,  it is usually very hot,  and unfriendly insects are abundant. The biggest difficulty is the unmitigated greenness of everything in nature. My aim was to create sufficient variations of color, so that my picture wouldn't bombard the viewer with green.