Thursday, April 11, 2013

Move the artist when you can’t move the canvas…


The easel my Dad made will take a very large canvas but not a 4x6 footer like that for the 50 Years of Our Flag Project. When one prepares a large canvas, you don’t necessarily think “now just how am I going to paint on that monster?” The solution was to hang the canvas on a large mobile display rack that I had built years ago. The painting is stationary and I move myself up and down to work on various portions of the 3456 square inches. I used different chairs for different elevations ... from a lowly milk stool to a high bar chair with a booster seat. It worked. The image shows the three different chairs plus the booster seat borrowed from the Grand Kids.
There are an additional 720 square inches around the edge of this gallery style stretched canvas. I painted those by using ladders or laying on my back – not glamorous but it worked.

An 8 foot mahl stick kept my hand steady when I was doing precision work. The mahl stick is actually left over moulding from home construction. When I was breaking up excess wood to burn in the wood stove I knew I would find a use for the long piece of wood ... just couldn't imagine what that use might be at the time.
I display the originals of my subject matter and used construction work lights to augment the natural light in my studio.
With the wood stove burning the studio was a terrific place to paint this very long winter. Don't get me wrong, I loved the snowy and wintry weather that we had but I hear that some people are getting tired of it... and with another freezing rain storm on the way for tonight. I expect the freeezing rain to reach Singleton by midnight. Brace your selfs !

No comments: