easel
If you work with any art medium that has a glossy appearance, such as oil paint, you will benefit from propping the artwork vertical to reduce the glare on the surface. This means if you are painting with oils, alkyds, or acrylics, you need an artist easel. There are different types such as A-frames (like mine to the right), H-frames, convertibles, single-mast, etc. If you haven't already purchased an easel, find the sturdiest one in your price range. Honestly, you don't need a fancy expensive easel to make a painting, just one with a solid frame and good hardware. Check out Rembrandt's easel below - pretty simple eh?
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Ideally you want to set your easel up like the image to the right. For more tips on how to light a painting, visit my Lighting a Painting page.
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One important point to note is that many easels from the large art stores come with inferior metal hardware. The wood quality and construction are good, but for some reason that does not hold true for metal parts. Quailty steel hardware with the correct tempering will never lose its shape unless it is greatly abused. With that said, look at the thumbscrew to the right from my easel. The bolt incased in the black handle appears stout, but the metal is actually fairly soft. Look at the threads in the first image. You can see that where they entered the nut to tighten the ledge on the easel they have worn down after numerous turns. After a while of this, the bolt would no longer pass through the nut enough to clamp the ledge to hold the painting. Then of course, mine instinct was to muscle the bolt through and I broke the plastic grip. I was able to repair the nut by running a tap through to fix the threads but I had to replace the thumbscrew with a eye-bolt from the hardware store.
The moral of this story is to lubricate the metal hardware on you easel. Even though the cheap hardware will inevitably wear down, a little oil will help extend its life. While in art school, just about every easel had worn metal hardware preventing them from clamping the ledge firmly in place. The school's solution was to use spring clamps underneath the ledge to hold it in place. The hardware probably would have last longer if the metal threads on each easel received a spray of WD-40 every now and then.
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