Before I go too far, I’ll point out that although this is essentially an instructional book, it also works well simply as an art book; and fans of fantastic art in general, and Gurney’s work in particular, will quickly find it a “must-have”. (See my previous posts on James Gurney, also here and here. As a side note, Gurney is part of the Enchantment Artist’s Symposium and Exhibition at the University of Hartford’s Joseloff Gallery, 6 November 2009 to 17 January 2010.)

First, this book is unusual because of its topic. Most art instruction books concern themselves with drawing and painting aspects of the real world, and this is certainly the most fundamental and important factor in representational art. But for those in working in areas that demand the creation of images of things that do not exist, whether of real but extinct animals, scenes form the historic past or visionary imaginings of undiscovered worlds, the challenge is to take those fundamentals of drawing and painting from life and extend them into the realm of the imagined.

This is increasingly important for contemporary illustrators, movie and gaming concept artists, animators and comic book artists. Figures, faces, animals, creatures, scenes and entire worlds need to be conjured from the the artist’s imagination and made visually manifest.

Gurney tackles the skills needed in this kind of art head-on. He goes through an extensive array of topics, from generating ideas to initial sketches to models and maquettes, through materials, mediums, techniques, perspective, composition and finishing. In the process he covers elements like imagined architecture and landscapes, vehicles, dinosaurs, history painting, characters, creatures and aliens. The topics are arranged in short, but densely informative two-page topics and sub-topics, lavishly illustrated with Gurney’s own work and occasional nods to the masters.

Steeped in the traditions of classic representational art and the firm artistic foundations of 19th Century academic art in particular, Gurney starts from his interest in those traditions and opens with a brief look at the history and origins of imaginative art, with an acknowledgement of the value of studying the work of artists that have defined the field.

The topics are at once wide ranging and surprisingly consistent. I say that because of the other, perhaps most important, stand out characteristic of this book, its rather unique origin.

There are several approaches to the creation of art instruction books. We can eliminate those that are mediocre or downright terrible and concentrate only on books we would consider valuable.

Among these there are books that are proposed by editors in publishing houses, and fulfilled in a perfunctory, but capable manner by artists and writers chosen for the task. There are books that are proposed by the artists themselves in an effort to leverage their knowledge into financial stability beyond its application in their own work. There are books that are created from the artist’s inclination to take on the role of a teacher.

Rarest of all, there are art instruction books that are born out of the artist’s sheer enthusiasm for what they have learned and the desire to share it with any who are inclined to benefit from that knowledge. Imaginative Realism is one of those rare gems.

The contents of this book didn’t originate as a book project, but were gleaned from posts to Gurney’s superb blog, Gurney Journey, in which they have been offered up for free over the course of the last few years.

Over the extent of it’s run, Gurney’s blog has evolved from chronicling a book tour into a personal journey of artistic exploration and discovery; in the course of which Gurney has shared his insights into painting, composition, color, light and a variety of keen observations about the nature of creating art. As you can imagine, in the course of writing Lines and Colors I have occasion to visit hundreds and hundreds of artists’ web sites and blogs. Gurney Journey is one of the exceptional few that I return to on an almost daily basis.

The book started as an idea in a blog post, and further posts followed it’s creation and eventual publication. In this one, Gurney explains his intention in creating the book.

The resulting book is beautiful. It’s printed in a nicely oversize format on heavy stock, with printing values that make the hundreds of illustrations jump off the pages. The reproduction standards follow in the tradition of the superb reproductions and excellent printing evident in Gurney’s popular Dinotopia books (particularly the most recent one, Journey to Chandara), and his refined use of color is vibrantly present.

I also haven’t seen many art instruction books as information dense as this one. Not that the book feels visually cramped in any way, the book design is clear and elegant, but every one of its 200+ pages can be mined for nuggets of art technique gold. This is likely due to the origin of the book in blog posts collected over a long time, rather than a book project that had to be filled out from its inception. Instead of having to put together enough material to create a substantial book, Gurney probably had a job sifting through that wealth of material and deciding what to leave out.

Gurney even goes the extra mile and gives an insightful overview of art careers based on the techniques he outlines in the book, including paperback covers, film design, storyboards, concept art, video game design, toy design and even theme park design.

The one glaring omission is comics, perhaps because it’s an art form in which Gurney doesn’t personally work, and, though he pays plenty of attention to drawing, his emphasis is on painting. I do work in comics, however, so I’ll take in on myself to point out that virtually all of the concepts in the book can be applied to the creation of comics in addition to the other areas mentioned.

The last way in which Imaginative Realism is different from most other art instruction books is the feeling it carries of a start-to-finish labor of love; from its origin in the artist’s enthusiasm for the subject, to the fulfillment from a lifetime of experience, observation and work, to it’s refined finish, crafted like one of Gurney’s own paintings. It is instructive not only in how to draw and paint from the imagination, but in how to create an outstanding art instruction book.

In short, an absolute treat.

While you might expect a painting developed for an instructional DVD to be more quickly realized than Giancola’s highly finessed professional work, he turns in a work worthy of the 18 Chesley Awards he has garnered, showcasing his strengths not only as an imaginative science fiction artist, but as a strong figurative painter, steeped in the techniques of traditional oil painting.

The demonstration goes from initial sketches to reference photography through the step by step creation of the finished painting. The two disc DVD is $60 and runs 5 hours, but there is a 6 minute+ trailer on YouTube, that is instructive in it’s own right, in addition to giving a good taste of the quality of the DVD.

Giancola presents his thoughts with clarity, explaining his process in some detail, while the director alternates between time-lapse segments, in which some of the more extended periods of painting are condensed, and real-time segments in which the most salient parts of Giancola’s painting process are demonstrated.

Perkins is a recognized teacher. He has taught at the Art Center College of Design and Associates in Art and is currently an instructor at Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art.

I wrote about Perkins in 2007, when I emphasized his career as a concept artist and art director for companies like Walt Disney Feature Animation, Warner Brothers, Dreamworks, ILM, and 9th Ray Studios.

Perkins has a production design studio called High Street Studio. Unfortunately, there is not a site devoted to his plein-air painting. His Bill Perkins Studio site hasn’t been updated since June of 2008. There is an article about both aspects of his career on Articles & Texticles.

Perkins will be giving a one and two day “Plein Air Painting Workshop with Models” in the Pasadena area on September 19th & 20th, 2009.

According to Thomas Brillante, who is apparently helping to co-ordinate the event, “This workshop covers plein air techniques with focusing on changing light and capturing light. There will be lots of demos through out the day and personal instruction.”

The workshop will be limited to about 12-14 artists a day. Contact information is on the flyer posted here.

Guffey actually talked with the Google Maps team and received their approval to the idea of creating paintings from Google Maps Street Views and selling them. The only caveat is that if the original source photographic view is shown along with the painting, that credit be assigned for the photograph (Google logo and copyright visible in the photograph). There is no claim of restriction on the paintings themselves.

This addresses the issue with using photographs by others as source material for artists, in that photographs themselves can be works of art, and are copyrightable.

The issues there are somewhat murky, involving interpretation based on verisimilitude and the legal status of the source photograph. An interesting example of this is the controversy surrounding the use of an AP photo for Shepard Fairey’s “Hope” poster of Barack Obama, and the subsequent suit by the AP.

The OK by Google over use of their maps photography for paintings obviates the issue of permission in individual cases where paintings are made using traditional media (though I’m sure that digital manipulation of the source photographs to make a digital work is another issue entirely).

Guffey, who has been using Google Maps Street views in a series of this own paintings, such as his State Series, realized that this opened the door to a Virtual Paintout, using Google Maps views of a particular place as the theme to create a virtual version of a traditional paintout gathering.

This is in some ways similar to the themed group painting and blog posting projects like Karin Jurick’s Different Strokes from Different Folks, in which the source inspiration is a single photograph (see my posts on Different Strokes from Different Folks and Different Strokes from Different Folks Portrait Swap).

Previous Virtual Paintout locations included Baltimore and Seattle. The most recent completed Virtual Paintout location was Amsterdam, from which I’ve pulled a few examples at left (top to bottom: Phil Holt, Sharon Williamson, Carol Morgan, Bill Guffey).

The new, current Virtual Paintout location is Paris (ah, Paris!). This one starts now and runs to the end of May. The blog post provides a map and a link to the larger original map on Google. You would use the latter to access Street View.

If you haven’t used Google Street View before, prepare to be amazed. On the full size map, drag the small icon of a person from the upper left view control bar into the image to see a street view from that location. Mouse across the image to rotate the view or look up and down. Move the figure in the inset map to move the view, or click back on the minus sign in the upper left to pull back to map view.

Find a location you like, perhaps take a screenshot for further reference and start painting. (Are there any views in central Paris that are not potential views for a painting?) There are more complete instructions, including how to submit your painting to the Virtual Paintout blog, in the blog’s right hand column.

You can see more of Guffey’s own work, much of which has a painterly plein air feeling, even when painted from Street View photographs, on his blog and web site.

In them you can see Antony painting at various locations in the English countryside and towns, using his small hand-held pochade box, as well as painting small self portraits.

I followed links to the site at pochade.co.uk where he displays and sells his paintings with other pochade artists like Carl Melegari and Ben Spurling, interviews artists who do pochade painting, (including Carol Marine, who I wrote about here), shares a blog with other painters on the site, and also sells the small hand-held pochade boxes he uses. These are made on a small scale basis by a UK carpenter and designer who works under the name of Red Top designs.

More recently, Bridge and Carl Melegari have chosen to display and sell their work on a joint site called The Pochade Gallery, with a current painting by each artist on the home page and an archive of both artist’s work. (The arrangement of the archive is a little confusing at first glance, take note of the artist signatures above the left and right sets of three columns.)

Antony Bridge (image above, top) studied illustration and, when not pochade painting, works as a freelance designer creating title sequences for TV productions as well as doing event branding. His pochade paintings range from hillsides and town scenes to still life and interiors. He also has a series of self portrait studies.

Ben Spurling (image above, bottom) was also trained in illustration. His painting subjects lean toward coastlines, mountains and dramatic skies, in addition to smaller scale subjects and still life.

They both have a passion for traveling the countryside, pochade box at the ready to capture a fleeting scene. As the description of pochade painting on the pochade.co.uk site declares: “Who needs a camera?”

In a fascinating variation for the Year End Challenge, participating painters were asked to submit a photograph of themselves from the shoulders up. These were then swapped, distributed out to different artists in the the artistic equivalent of an office gift swap (sometimes called a “pollyanna”), and each artist painted another artist’s portrait.

The resultant paintings are a fascinating array of portraits, in different styles, approaches, mediums and degrees of accomplishment.

I find the idea of artists painting artists particularly fascinating.

(Please see the Different Strokes article for artist credits for the images above.)

Janson has a deep and abiding interest in the work of Johannes Vermeer, one of the most enigmatic and fascinating figures in the history of art. The result of that fascination is twofold.

One happy result is that Janson has gifted us with Essential Vermeer, an astonishingly extensive and beautifully crafted web resource on Vermeer and his work, that is the high mark for any web resource devoted to a single artist (see my previous post on Essential Vermeer). The only close second, in fact, is Janson’s other, somewhat similar, site: Rembrant van Rijn: Life and Work (see my previous post about the site under its old title, Rembrandt: life paintings etchings drawings and self portraits).

In addition, Janson has created an extensive sub-site devoted specifically to the study of Vermeer’s Girl with a Pearl Earring, and has recently started a blog called Flying Fox, focused on Vermeer, exhibitions and loans of his works as well as other related topics. (The name Flying Fox is from an inn in Delft that was likely central to Vermeer’s world.)

I liken Janson’s Vermeer and Rembrandt sites to the 21st Century equivalent of artist monographs, but bringing to bear the advantages of web technology to extend the lines of information deep into the resources of the web.

Another difference between these sites and traditional monographs is that monographs on artists are usually written by art historians, who study art from a certain perspective, but rarely the perspective of a working artist. The advantages of the latter viewpoint are particularly evident in Janson’s study of Vermeer’s Painting Techinque.

Janson not only brings the perspective of a painter to his writing and research on Vermeer, but moves the knowledge in the other direction, to the second result of his fascination with that artist, in the way it has transformed and informed his own painting.

Many of Janson’s recent works are in-depth and in-practice explorations of Vermeer’s techniques, some of which he has codified in a book, How to Paint Your Own Vermeer: Recapturing materials and Methods of a Seventeenth-Century Master.

Janson’s own explorations of Vermeer’s approach even extend to humorous recasting of some of Vermeer’s famous compositions into his own modern counterparts, a practice that can be simultaneously hilarious and poetic, as in his Girl Playing a Guitar, in which a purple Stratocaster takes the place of Vermeer’s more demure instruments in Woman with a Lute and The Guitar Player.

You can see the same humorous but beautifully painted approach in Janson’s adaptation of Vermeer’s composition from A Lady Writing (see my post on A Vermeer Comes to California), as Young Girl Writing an Email (image above, larger version here), in which Vermeer’s elegant box (perhaps a music box?) has been replaced with a boom box and his quill and inkwell with a laptop. Janson has retained the pearls on the table, and, of course, that wonderful earring.

Vermeer can be surprisingly painterly at times, belying the apparent “realism” of his paintings, and can also be remarkably “soft”, despite the perception he gives of intricate sharp detail. Also, perhaps because of his use of a camera obscura, Vermeer seems in general preoccupied with matters of focus, both in terms of degrees of visual sharpness and compositionally. Janson explores both of these aspects of Vermeer’s work in his own compositions, the soft edges and painterly touches being particularly evident in Girl Writing an Email (details above).

On Janson’s site you can see other examples of his Vermeer inspired interiors as well as his contemplative Seattle landscapes and watercolors.

There is currently a show of Janson’s work at Galleria dell’Incisione in Brescia, Italy until January 30, 2009.

Janson’s fascination with Vermeer has put him on a path of exploration that reaches into the past and future at the same time, in the process throwing a contemporary light on the master’s approach, and giving us a unique perspective from an artist who has done his best to look at a great painter from the “inside”, while revealing his own sensibilities and unique artistic vision.

Different Strokes from Different Folks starts with the premise that multiple artists paint a painting from the same photograph. Jurick provides the photograph and gets the ball rolling in each case with her own interpretation, leaving subsequent submissions open to any artists who wish to participate.

She emphasizes that the intent is to paint the scene and not the photograph, which is basically a digital stand-in for the physical impossibility of all of the artists painting on location together. Each artist looks for their own composition and interpretation of the subject.

Each session starts on Wednesday evening and is open for a week. The results are posted on the blog with links to each participating artist’s web site or blog. The original photograph is posted first, followed by Jurick’s starting piece and followed by subsequent submissions in sequence.

Those interested in participating should read the instructions on the blog’s sidebar carefully. Submissions are limited to traditional media, must be sent directly to her email address, with a specific subject line, as a JPEG file (not as a link and no blurry photos) and accompanied each time by the artist’s name and web site or blog address (regardless of previous submissions).

The result is a fascinating look at how different artists interpret the same scene in paint, and once each session has ended they participating paintings can be viewed as a group, as well as in the blog post (weekly results links on the sidebar).

Jurick also posts her own painting, and often a composite poster of the others, on her own blog.

As of this writing, the subject is the Cloud Gate sculpture (locally known as “The Bean”) in Millennium Park in Chicago.

(Image above: left column: Karin Jurick, Emma Pierce, Dean Haven, Nancy Rhodes Harper; right column: Alice Thompson, Tommye Easterlin, original photograph)

His web site doesn’t do much to change this, in that the images of his work, though presented well enough, are frustratingly small. At least they’re frustrating to me, as I’m particularly interested in his economical and beautifully handled brush work, which you can only really appreciate in large images.

You can still see in the reproductions his beautiful handling of color and value, his remarkable ability with “lost and found” edges, and his wonderful control of texture, light and atmosphere. When viewing work on his site, there are images in the Lithographs section in addition to Available Work and Archive Gallery.

Schmid paints alla prima; an a Italian phrase meaning “at once” or “at the first”, that defines the kind of painting done all in one session while the paint is wet, as opposed to the layers of paint used in classical painting. Most “plein air” painting (see my recent post on pochade boxes) is done alla prima.

It is also the title of Schmid’s highly regarded instructional book, Alla Prima: Everything I Know About Painting. (You will find used copies listed for unreasonably high prices on Amazon and elsewhere; it’s in print and reasonable ($50 paperback) from Schmid’s own site.)

Whether the subtitle is true, I don’t know. I suspect Schmid knows considerably more about painting than can be put in one book, but the book is valuable and he has put a great deal of information into its 200 or so pages.

This is not a painting instruction book in the sense of “here is what brush to use” and “here’s how to paint water”. Neither is it conceptual in the manner of books by Hawthorne or Henri, it’s somewhere between those two types of painting books, simultaneously high-concept and down to earth instructional.

The book is divided into chapters like “Starting”, “Values”, “Edges”, “Color and Light” and “Composition”, that are filled with both both practical techniques and food for thought about your approach and intent, with the end goal of using the natural world as your final arbiter in choosing colors, arranging compositions and conveying light and atmosphere.

Not that Schmid is slavishly realistic, far from it. His paintings are quite poetic, but they are based firmly in direct observation of the visual world.

Occasionally you may find him waxing philosophical; and you might disagree with some of his pronouncements. For instance he asserts that there are no such thing as “neutralized” colors; and while I understand his argument, I think it’s a matter of semantics and the term is a useful one. I disagree with him in a number of areas, but bear in mind that he is a better painter than I by a couple orders of magnitude (grin).

My impression of Schmid, and his sometimes lofty tone of voice in the book, was dramatically softened when I watched one of his videos, in which his personal demeanor and tone are much more appealing.

Schmid has a series of four instructional landscape DVDs and one on portraiture. I’ve seen the second in the series, Richard Schmid Paints the Landscape: June (bottom two images, above), and I found it well done, well paced and full of useful information and techniques; particularly for those who are painting alla prima, en plen air (I’m just having fun with painting terms today).

Unlike some instructional videos, this one proceeds at a relaxed pace, in keeping with a pace appropriate for the mindset of painting, and allowing time to see a great deal of his painting process in detail. It’s truncated in places, but the jumps are artfully chosen. The shoot is well directed, dwelling where appropriate on his palette and color mixing process, with close ups of the canvas and shots of the subject that emphasize the points he makes while painting.

The DVD has two parts, the first is a complete on location painting session, from sketch to finished painting, and the second, in the studio, revisits the painting for analysis and goes beyond; into a discussion of color range and the control of edges and color transitions that alone is worthwhile as an instructional video.

Like similar art instruction videos, these are not inexpensive ($75), and the site doesn’t give you a preview video clip to let you know how you might like it (which I think would be a good selling point), though it does offer a few stills from each video.

There is a brief excerpt from one of his videos on YouTube, unfortunately, it’s not a very good or representational segment, and the video compression distorts the image quality, so I wouldn’t judge the videos by it.

Another nice thing about his videos is that you finally get to see his brushwork close up, something that is missing even in the book.

In both his book and videos, Schmid emphasizes some fundamentals that are often glossed over, but are worth being reminded of. One in particular is “doing the charts”; a process that young art students often think is onerous busywork, but seasoned painters know is as invaluable to a painter as practicing scales is to a musician.

This is the process of painting your own color charts, in which you mix a value scale of each color, and then value scales of each color in combination with each of the other colors in your basic palette. It is a process that gives you more color mixing knowledge than a truckload of color mixing books and preprinted charts could ever begin to provide.

It is this kind of adherence to the time tested painting fundamentals, that work and have been successful for representational painters through history, that is the basis for both Schmid’s teaching and his beautifully economical and lyrically poetic paintings.

Plein air painting has undergone something of a renaissance in the last 20 years or so, a phenomenon which seems to be growing. As in the 19th Century, there is new equipment that makes the practice easier and more practical, notably a new generation of pochade boxes.

Pochade is a French word meaning a small painted sketch, particularly one painted in oils, out of doors, and often in preparation for a larger, more finished work. I think it’s one of those French words that’s actually used more commonly among non French speakers. It’s derived from a 19th Century French verb, pocher, meaning to sketch.

A pochade box, then, is a portable painting box meant to facilitate the creation of small alla prima paintings or sketches. Modern ones are fitted with tripod mounts which allow them to be set up in an extremely flexible fashion, and carried to the painting site more easily than the traditional outdoor painting box/easel combination known as a French easel.

French easels are still in wide use and have many adherents, and they are better suited for some things, such as handling large scale paintings. There are also a number of other types of dedicated outdoor portable easels for that purpose (like the Soltek, SunEden or Take-it-Easel); but for small scale paintings, the pochade box is becoming the outdoor painting platform of choice.

Some will say that anything larger than 6×8″ doesn’t count as a “pochade”, but the modern boxes are bridging the gap between that definition and the function of French easels, the larger ones easily handling 12×16″ (30×40cm) panels or even larger.

A pochade box shouldn’t be confused with a simple painting box, which holds painting supplies and a wooden palette, but has no provision for acting as an easel.

I did a bit of research this year before acquiring my own pochade box, and I’ll try to give you the benefit of my rather exhaustive search with an overview of what I found.

Most pochade boxes are designed to handle flat painting panels, like primed Masonite, or canvas attached to a board, though some will also hold (but not carry) small stretched canvases.

Pochade boxes come in a variety of sizes, usually to fit standard size panels, such as 6×8″, 8×10″, 9×12″, etc. The smaller boxes are lighter but also have a smaller palette area, though most manufacturers offer palette extensions or add-ons of some kind, as well as ways of attaching fluid cups and holding brushes.

Most pochade boxes are primarily aimed at oil painting, but some of the manufacturers also have pastel or watercolor models, and oil oriented boxes can be adapted for watercolor with the addition of a watercolor palette, as most of them have panel holders that will open to a flat position.

Types

Pochade boxes fall into two major configurations; the first type, I’ll call “palette and panel only”, the second, I’ll call “all in one” (obviously not official terms of any sort).

The former is a combination of a recessed palette surface, usually a wood traditionally used for palettes, like birch (which some artists cover with a sheet of glass or plexiglass), with an attached, hinged panel holder, forming the easel. The whole unit has a standard photographic tripod mount underneath that allows for it to be adjusted and set in virtually any position when mounted on the tripod.

The painting panel is held in place by a variety of mechanisms, depending on the manufacturer. There is also variation in the means of adjusting the angle of the easel back.

For the palette and panel style boxes, painting supplies and wet panels are carried separately, and the manufacturers often sell complete “kits” that fit into a wooden box, cloth bag or carrying pack.

The “all in one” style pochade box not only provides a palette and easel, but also incorporates storage for painting supplies and the built in provision for carrying wet panels.

The advantage of the all in one style is that everything is in one unit, and the painting supplies are at hand in drawers or compartments right there near the palette while you’re painting. The disadvantage is that the all in one boxes are bulkier and heavier, and require a more sturdy (and expensive) tripod.

“Palette and panel only” style

Open Box M

This is one of the most popular and well regarded manufacturers of this type of pochade box. They use a spring loaded horizontal clip system to hold the panels, which allows access to all parts of the panel without obstruction.

Their complete kit includes a walnut carrying box and matched wet panel holder. They also have lightweight kits with a soft pack instead of the outer box.

In addition, they make “palm boxes“, meant to be held to the hand with a strap instead of mounted on a tripod. You can also purchase the palette/panel holders separately, without the panel carrier and outer box.

I note that, among others, James Gurney, who is a dedicated plein air painter as well as a talented studio painter and illustrator, uses an Open Box M pochade box, and recommends it strongly. I have a high regard for Gurney’s expertise, and I take his recommendation as a major seal of approval. Gurney’s blog, Gurney Journey, has a number of posts in which you can see good shots of his Open Box M pochade box in use.

The Open Box M web site is a little confusing, in that their “Product List” doesn’t include many of the products and buying options available from the individual menu choices. Open up the menus on the left and click on the sub-choices to see the full range of products. They have dedicated models for pastels and watercolor. The boxes range from 8×10″ to 12×16″.

EASyL and ProChade

EASyL and ProChade are brand names for pochade boxes from Artwork Essentials. These also have their adherents among well known painters. Notably, Kevin Macpherson, who some of you may recognize as the author of some very popular (and quite good) books on painting, has given the ProChade model his official endorsement.

The EASyL and ProChade models use a vertical spring-mounted holder that does not restrict the size of the panel horizontally (though past a certain point, you would overload the box). The boxes range from 10×12″ to 12×16″.

The EASyL models (though not the ProChade) provide carrying for wet (or dry) panels in the back of the easel, placing them somewhere between the panel and palette style and all in one style of boxes. Some of the models offer a limited compartment separate from the palette area for carrying a few supplies. You can order a separator grid that fits in the recessed palette area for pastels.

When looking at the product pages on their site, note that they offer downloadable PDF files that go into more detail about the boxes than the web pages. There is also a PDF chart comparing their various boxes side by side. Their boxes come with a matched tripod.

Like Open Box M, Artwork Essentials carries a line of pochade box and plein air painting accessories, in their case one of the most complete, including a clamp-on lightweight umbrella and even plein air style picture frames.

Heffernan ArtWorks

Heffernan ArtWorks is the husband and wife team of retired engineers Suzanne and David Huffernan. She paints, he turns out pochade boxes and wet panel carriers. The pochade box is a single 11×15″ model with a configuration and panel holder setup somewhat similar to Open Box M.

The panel holder on the pochade box can accommodate 5×7″ to 16×20″ panels and the wet panel carriers come in three models.

“All in one” style

Judsons Guerrilla Painter

This is the brand of pochade boxes you will most commonly encounter in retail settings, art supply stores and online art suppliers. They seem to have that market sewn up for the moment (along with some French easel manufacturers), and the other brands usually have to be ordered directly from the manufacturer.

They have a line of pochade boxes and accessories and sell their own branded tripods as well. They show a typical setup for oils, watermedia and pastels.

The Guerrilla Painter boxes feature a compartmented space beneath the palette area, accessed by sliding the palette surface to one side. They are probably the deepest boxes on the market with more space for supplies. The hinged back holds two wet panels. If I understand the configuration correctly, one of them is the active panel, which is held in place by clips. The clips in this case do not appear to be spring mounted or adjustable, apparently limiting the horizontal size of the panel to the size of the box unless you use an optional adapter. They indicate that the box can accommodate larger panels vertically, but it seems to be one of the least flexible of the panel holder systems.

They also sell umbrellas and a broad range of other pochade and general painting supplies and accessories. They also make small “ThumBox” models, with a thumb hole in the bottom, for holding like a traditional artist’s palette, in addition to the tripod mount. The thumb boxes are 6×8″ and the Guerrilla Box comes in 9×12″ or 12×16″ sizes.

Though tripods are not included with the boxes as they are with ArtWork Essentials, Judson’s site is helpful in that they offer separate tripods matched to their boxes, eliminating the need to guess at what’s appropriate.

Art Attack

Art Attack, sold through Willow Wisp Farm Studios, is a few different products. Art Attack 1 is a cross between a pochade style palette and a French easel type of panel holder (more like a traditional easel). It mounts on a tripod and has no built-in storage. The Art Attack 3 is a dedicated pastel version of this.

Art Attack 2 is a 9×12″ pochade box with a Guerrilla Painter style supply compartment and palette, but a more flexible adjustable panel holder that looks like it’s spring mounted vertically.

They also make Art Attack 5 (I don’t know what happened to 4), a palette and panel holder designed, interestingly enough, specifically to mount on a car steering wheel so you can paint in the rain, (or while cruising down the highway I suppose). The Art Attack boxes are crafted by a single woodworker, Mike Taylor. They can be ordered with or without a tripod.

The Billups Box

Designed by artist Betty Billips, these boxes come in 8×10 and 9×12 sizes and feature a drop down front with wet panel storage (up to six panels) accessible shelf-like, under the compartment for supplies.

The palette is a fold-out system, twice the size of the box.

The boxes are made of high-impact plastic instead of wood.

Abbey Easels (UK)

This UK manufacturer of various styles of easels offers three pochade boxes, though it doesn’t look to me as though they can be tripod mounted and are evidently meant to be used on a table. One fits 203×152mm (8×6″) and the other 360×255mm (14×10″). They also offer a watercolor pochade box meant to fit an A5 pad in the lid.

It doesn’t look at though the lid angles are very adjustable.

Utrecht (Jullian)

This is a small “thumb” style box, meant to be held in the hand with the thumb through a hole in the bottom like a traditional palette. It’s made by Jullian, who manufacture the most popular French Easel, and branded for art supply company Utrecht.

The box itself is 7×9″ so I might assume that the panels it fits are 6×8″ (or 6″ wide x whatever high), however, I’m not at all certain. The online store says to contact Utrecht customer service for questions about panels to fit the box, so maybe it’s made to accommodate a metric size. The customer service link, and a larger photo of the box, are on this page.

The Jullian site (UK) only shows them as sold with a set of paints and brushes and includes a panel sized at 22×16cm. Whether it will as comfortably handle a 6×8″, or if the Utrecht branded version is different, is a a little unclear. I assume Utrecht customer service has the answer.

Pochade.co.uk

Another small box. Pochade.co.uk was the site of UK pochade painter Antony Bridge, through which he was selling some of his small paintings. You may have seen some of his videos on YouTube.

He added painters Ben Spurling and Carl Melgari to his site, and started carrying a single model of small pochade boxes.

This is a handheld model, and has space for three 6×8″ panels and a bin for storage. It looks like the method by which the panel is held in the lid may restrict access to the edges of the panel, but it’s hard to tell from the limited photos. They sell for £65.

(Note to Antony: you might want to slow down your animation and stop it after three revolutions. It can be annoying and doesn’t give a very good view of the box.) The boxes are made by a UK carpenter and designer under the name of Red Top Designs.

Alla Prima Pochade

Like the Art Attack and Pochade.co.uk boxes, Alla Prima Pochade boxes are crafted by a single woodworker, Ben Haggett, though he is a full time dedicated pochade box maker as well as a plein air painter.

Alla Prima has a full line of sizes and styles and should be thought of in the same league with the larger manufacturers like Open Box M, EASyL and Guerrilla.

I have to make a bit of a disclaimer at this point.

After doing the research you’re getting the benefit of here, looking at all of the options I could find, and determining that my personal preference was for an all in one style box, I decided on one from Alla Prima Pochade. I was very impressed with the design, features and evident craftsmanship.

I then approached Haggett about redoing the Alla Prima Pochade web site, to which he agreed, and he is now my client. The web site you’ll see if you visit is the one I designed. So I can no longer say I’m unbiased; though I was when I initially made my decision to choose one of his boxes.

Haggett is damnably clever. His boxes feature several different configurations, based on the size of the box and the best solution he can design to accommodate carrying panels, brushes and other supplies in each. He also has unorthodox and clever solutions for the hinge mechanism, using torsion springs that eliminate the need for knobs or wingnuts.

His panel holder solution is equally unorthodox and remarkably flexible, consisting of a lower panel rest held in place by (uncommonly strong) magnets, that move in channels behind the panel holder, and a sheet-spring top clip. Like the EASyL models there is no restraint to the horizontal size, though you can only carry that so far without it becoming unwieldy.

Magnets also close the box lid, which holds four 1/8″ thick panels (or two 1/4″). The panel storage has a removable adapter that allows for carrying smaller panels, e.g. the 10×12 model can carry a 10×12, 9×12, 6×8 and 8×10 all at the same time. The magnets also make it easy to stick palette knives to the box when working, though palette knife painters have to be careful when painting in the vicinity of the bottom panel holder.

In the smallest, 6×8″, model, he uses a sliding palette to cover the storage bin, like the Guerrilla Painter configuration. In the 8×10, he has a single drawer. Both feature clip-on palette extenders.

The larger boxes, 10×12″ and 11×14″, utilize two drawers that can extend in a balanced manner when painting, one of which can hold a palette extension and both of which are drilled to serve as brush holders.

There are “lite” versions of his two biggest models – essentially palette and panel holder only variations with no drawers. They still incorporate brush and wet panel storage (2 panels instead of 4). Haggett can also build custom pochade boxes on request.

All of his boxes can be extended with optional “piggyback adapters” that tie into the box when closed (with magnets and a strap) to allow for carrying larger panels than the lid would normally accommodate (e.g. the 6×8 box can carry 8×10″ panels, the 10×12 can carry 12×16″). The piggyback can hang from the tripod when painting to serve as an extra bin.

The Alla Prima Pochade boxes themselves range in size from 6×8″ to 11×14″; the 11×14 can handle up to 14×18″ panels with its piggyback.

Like most of the other manufacturers, he also sells separate wet panel carriers for extra storage. Alla Prima doesn’t sell tripods, but Haggett does give a few suggestions.

Their are videos of Haggett demonstrating the boxes and how they work, that are also available on YouTube.

I got the 10×12 “Bitterroot” model (image at the top of the article shows my box in use) and I’ve been very pleased. The box is physically beautiful and a joy to use. My father was a woodworker and museum model maker and I know good woodworking when I see it. The cleverness is put to good use and the box is extremely easy to set up, and everything just seems to be exactly where I need it while painting. Plus the thing smells great.

Tripods

Except for some of the handheld models, most pochade boxes are fitted with tripod mounts, though you can certainly use them in your lap or on a table. I’ve mentioned in the course of the article that although some boxes come with tripods, most don’t.

Even the lightest boxes are heavier than most cameras, so your $30 K-Mart tripod probably won’t hold them very well except for the smallest models. For the all in one style, the largest of which can weigh in at 8-10lbs or more with paint and panels in them, you’ll want a sturdy professional tripod.

If you’re serious, look at a professional specialty camera store (as opposed to typical mall stores). Some of the brands mentioned include Bogen (Bogen Junior or Bogen Digi), Velbon and Silk. James Gurney uses a Velbon CX 444. I went a little overboard and got a Bogen Manfrotto 190 and a 488 head (tripods and heads are often separate units at the professional level).

As Ben Haggett points out, though, a tripod for a pochade box doesn’t have to be rock steady as it does for a camera with a large lens, and you can often get away with overloading them well beyond spec; as long as they don’t have a flimsy head or plastic quick release shoe that will break under strain.

Check eBay, Craig’s List or your parents’ attic. You’ll be surprised how many tripods are gathering dust somewhere, waiting to be used.

Panels

There are various sources for buying or making primed or canvas covered panels. I sacrifice money to save time and buy already prepared 1/8″ Ampersand Gessobord panels from Dick Blick.

Sizes

When I give sizes for the boxes, it’s a reference to the size of the panels they hold, not their outer dimensions. For the benefit of those outside the US here is a rough conversion of common panel and box sizes:

6×8″ — 15×20cm
8×10″ — 20×25cm
9x 12″ — 23×30cm
10×12″ — 25×30cm
11×14″ — 27×35cm
12×16″ — 30×40cm

(and here is an interesting map of all of the countries in the world that do not use the metric system).

Do it Yourself

If you’re inclined to woodworking, or simple tinkering, there are some DIY options.

Artist Easel Plans

Artist Easel Plans is a web site that offers $15 plans for building what looks like a reasonably professional pochade box, in theory for around $30 in materials (though this figure is probably a few years old). You could, of course, design and spec your own box, but they’ve saved you some steps and guesswork here, provided you like their designs. You could also take their plans as a starting point for your own.

The pochade box is (I think) designed to carry 10×12 panels and will hold smaller ones as well with a horizontal spring clip similar to Open Box M. Panel storage is under a lift-out palette that sits in the bin and could also be used for supply storage. (I’m not sure from the pictures if you can store both panels and supplies or must choose between them.) Not the most convenient arrangement for getting at supplies when working, but serviceable I suppose. There are slide-out trays for holding brushes and cups while working.

Plein air artist Bill Sharp has apparently built one of these (or something very similar) and has a larger photo on his blog.

There are also plans for a pastel easel and a watercolor pochade box that oil painters may find appealing as well, with a different (and perhaps more practical) configuration than the other pochade box.

The paint box conversion

David R. Becker shows you how he converted an old wooden painting box (the kind simply meant to carry paints and a palette) into a pochade box with the addition of some homemade brackets, new hinges and a “Teenut” fastener for the tripod mount.

His box is designed for water media, but could easily be adapted for oils. No fancy panel holders here, the panel just sets in the lid. I’m not sure how you would keep smaller ones from moving around.

Sketchin Dan’s DIY pochade box

A kind of how-to in the form of a Flickr photo stream, annotated with notes on the photos for a basic box to hold 6×8″. The panel holder setup is a bit crude, consisting of office supply clips, bolts and washers, but hey, we’re talking cheap DIY here. He doesn’t go in to much detail on the box itself, mostly concentrating on the hinge, panel holder and accessories. He also, unfortunately, breezes past the rather crucial point of the tripod mount.

The $15 cigar box pochade box

Ellie Clemens tells you how she converted a wooden cigar box into a small hand-held pochade box with inexpensive hardware.

This is probably a clue to where the original pochade boxes came from. I can just see Constable or Corot tinkering up one of these in the 1800’s.