Pochade Box - Large

 A few years ago I started taking art lessons for several reasons. One is drawing is a small, light weight hobby to take with me when travelling. The other big reason was Grandchildren, they love to draw, colour and paint, They don't know that Opa has limited skills so they innocently asked me to draw things, cats, boats, cars trains, gerbils, flowers etc. This Opa does't want to disappoint the Grandchildren.  So....I began taking art lessons at our local seniors centre.  Progress was slow and I still have a lifetimes work ahead of me to become competent. 

  Art like everything 'Maker' related thing has its own special tools and equipment. An Artist's tool box is called a Pochade Box, a large scale Pochade Box is often called a French Easel. 

French Easel, opened and 

closed for travel.

  For a couple of classes I carried my stuff around in a school bag, or shopping bag or back pack or whatever.

  What I found with time, is that all those other artists who had gone on before me actually knew what they were doing and made my first art tool box. 

17.5 x 15.5 x 4.5 inches

Opened and set up like a desk easel.

  I used this box for an oil painting class.  The Baltic birch plywood has an oak frame and plenty of storage for all the gear a student needed including slots in the lid to hold canvases while they dried. 

  This was the first art box I made and from it I learned a couple of useful lessons.  

1. oak is not necessary, my box is bomb proof and its weight reflects that.

2. it is almost a portable studio not a portable sketch on site kit, so the next box was smaller.

3. the wooden latches might be cool but..they are over engineered and heavy like the entire          box. 

4 I really didn't enjoy oil painting at all.  I like pencil crayon, graphite and watercolour so many     of the tools are different and usually you paint on a smaller less vertical surface.  

    I don't use this large box for much other than storage now.  It does a good job of storing and protecting water colour papers and other less used supplies. 

  Next time the Mid sized box, the one most used and why.

The mid-sized box, in the large box. This box is 

actually a true Pochade box.