Winter in Paris, by Brian BloodThis is the winner of the October Fine Art Views competition. Here is a link to that page. Congratulations Brian. I really like the painting above, it has so much charm and the restrained color scheme is awfully nice. The quiet color and handling made it a charming rather than a mawkishly sentimental painting.
The geometry of the foreground buildings is varied and interesting and the bridge across that open negative space has a great decorative shape.The red and green in the buildings in the foreground are lovely mineral sorts of colors that look well against the grays and ochers of their surroundings. I could use a a winter painting trip to Paris, I know a great place where we could have lunch.
I have been asked about the Gloucester easels and whether the Take it easel is still available. I e- mailed Rosemary whose family business that is down on the cape and she sent me a letter of explanation. Here that is:
Stape;
We went to great lengths to ASK permission of the original makers of the
Gloucester Easel about reviving it. We met with a hearty "go for it" as they no longer had any interest in making it. We could not get copyright or trademark it, originally the "Andersen Easel" as it had been in the country for over 50 years. No one, to our knowledge, has produced it for decades before or since we started making them almost 20 years ago; although the west coast art supplier, Daniel Smith, wanted to produce them, they found could not make it financially profitable,
though they did purchase one from us at that time.
though they did purchase one from us at that time.
When we can, we hope to order more materials with which to build our HAND CRAFTED original reproduction of the Gloucester Easel which Emil Gruppe made popular in his Gloucester School of Painting so long ago.
Alas, Creative Mark has outsourced our "Take-It-Easel" BUT it doesn't function like the original "Gloucester Easel" that inspired our revival. We correct this. The "Beauport" easels made in China, are finely manufactured . . .the wood is excellent, the holes drilled on a multi head machine are very accurate, and we tune them up to function perfectly!
Here is the really good news:
We offer you the fully functional Beauport Easel for $250 including shipping and a lovely padded carrying bag, including all the extra pegs, extender legs and a wing–nut fastened platform for small works, all the additional parts China sends.
Thank you for your interest and for your loyalty, we are most interested in facilitating your plein air painting success!
Rosalie, Tom and Tobin Nadeau
Alas, Creative Mark has outsourced our "Take-It-Easel" BUT it doesn't function like the original "Gloucester Easel" that inspired our revival. We correct this. The "Beauport" easels made in China, are finely manufactured . . .the wood is excellent, the holes drilled on a multi head machine are very accurate, and we tune them up to function perfectly!
Here is the really good news:
We offer you the fully functional Beauport Easel for $250 including shipping and a lovely padded carrying bag, including all the extra pegs, extender legs and a wing–nut fastened platform for small works, all the additional parts China sends.
Thank you for your interest and for your loyalty, we are most interested in facilitating your plein air painting success!
Rosalie, Tom and Tobin Nadeau
So, there is how to get a working Gloucester easel. The Chi-com easel will not work out of the box and unless you know a LOT about them it will not be possible for you to get one up and working.
Next week I am going to do the The thirteenth Boston International art show at the Cyclorama in Boston. Here is a link to that. For several years now I have volunteered to help the Guild of Boston Artists with their exhibit. There is a lot of hauling things around to do and lots of hanging pictures up and taking them down, and I am good at those things. I will hang a picture in the show at the Guild booth.
I will see some of you there, I know, introduce yourselves to me, I would live to meet you. It is quite a show and many of the most important galleries on the East Coast and elsewhere are exhibitors. The show specializes in in antique and representational paintings. It is a real good place to see a whole lot of fine painting and learn about the trade. There are lots of fine antique paintings for sale and most of the best known living traditional and realist painters will have work there too.
Park at the Clarendon street garage. It affordable and close, to the Cyclorama building. I will probably do some reporting in the blog on the show for those of you in Australia, Jakarta and Germany.Wait till I tell you why the building is called the Cyclorama building, clue, it was never used to race bicycles!
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9 comments:
Thanks for the info on the easel, Srape. Its good to know- I first saw one about 20 years ago (should have bought it then!) I have about a half dozen half and full size Franch easels (I keep the wrecked ones for parts) and about as many pochade boxes of different shapes and sizes, but one can never satisfy the quest for more gear!
er, that should be ..Stape.
I discovered landscape painting in the hinterlands of Southern Indiana in 1970 and it wasn't until some years later that I realized there were such things as portable easels. Sure, I'd seen photographs of Claude Monet working away in the field with one, but somehow I failed to make the connection that even contemporary artists were allowed to use such things.
I used to sit on the ground angprop up my little canvas against the back of my wooded paint box- it worked well enough. But such an arrangement almost guarantees you're going to discover what you want to paint while walking around and upon sitting down to work, you experience a sense of disappointment as your elevated point of view becomes closer to ground level. When I finally came to my senses and bought my first portable easel, I was amazed how much more talented I became.
My first choice was the French easel model, and mostly because of all the great memories I have of working with it, I always go back to that choice when I have to replace the easel (sturdy they're not). I supposed I could try the sort of easels Stape prefers, but I have too much emotional attachment to my old methods at this point.
It's funny, but in a business as subjective as painting has to be, taking one's emotional attachments into consideration matters as well as purely utilitarian concerns. Which is a polite way of saying I'm too stubborn to change.
Actually Deborah Paris may have hit on something with her new name "Scrape" for our intrepid blogger.
Good Luck at Cyclorama, Stapelton. I hope the the show is well attended with interested and interesting people this year. I know how difficult it can be standing around .... I put in sometime there when I was repped by a certain gallery there a couple of years ago(you might have even been there). You'll be in spitting distance of my studio; in my turf. Have a great and successful time.
Deborah:
You are welcome
...............Stape
Deborah:
Yes it should.
....Srape
Philip: They aren't just tools there props. I love all the lod timey wooden stuff. I once bought an all metal French Easel mad with telescoping legs. It looked like the lunar lander and cost 500 dollars. It was aesthetically bad and the legs quit working.The old time stuff is owner repairable.
......Stape
Marian:
I am going to help the Guild and although I will have a picture hanging my first purpose will be to rep for them. Come and see the show, it is always a great experience.
...............Stape
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