Take It Easel plein air easel

"This easel is a real pleasure to use, a high quality, high performer, worth every cent... If you are looking to paint large works outside, I highly recommend the Take It Easel... After this trip, I wonder why I waited so long to buy one of these!"

I have used a lot of different easels over the years. I've worn out several Julian French Sketchbox Easels; I currently have 3 of them. I've painted with home made canvas holders which fit on my photo tripod plus lots of other contraptions from art supply stores or my workshop. I have a mid-sized Open Box M Pochade Box which is brilliantly made and great for 12 x 16 or smaller work. I paint outside winter and summer so I try to find and use equipment that will let me follow Henri's dictum,"Paint the spirit of the place." and do that in all kinds of weather conditions.

Recently, I made a committment to paint my large canvases on location instead of relying on enlarging smaller studies back in my studio. So early this spring, on a brilliant sunlit day, I drove to Jamestown, Rhode Island to paint some coastal scenes. There was light bouncing everywhere, off the water, off the ground, off my canvas even when my easel was turned towards the sun. I decided to put up my umbrella but with a stiff ocean breeze setting up harmonic vibrations in my canvas and threatening to place my set up in the water next to the John H Chaffee, I gave in and took the umbrella down but still had to hold on to my easel.

The next day, I looked at my work and realized that because of the glare, my paint passages were 1 to 2 steps darker in value than my scene. OK, it was time suck it up and to buy a serious easel, one that would let me paint larger works in all kinds of conditons. I paint with several other artists who use Gloucester easels for their work, so I was familiar with how well they perform even in adverse conditions.

What to buy? I've looked at the Chinese version of the Gloucester easel at Jerry's Artarama and thought that it was inelegantly made but pretty cheap. I could fix the thing if I wanted to spend several days rebuilding the easel and remanufacturing parts. Naah.... too much work for too little gain. So I ordered a Take It Easel (www.takeiteasel.com) from the guys in Vermont for $330. Right away,Tobin Nadeau acknowledged my order and told me when the product would ship and the easel arrived as promised several days later. I unpacked the easel and set it up in my back yard. I found the parts moved very smoothly - like wet glass, the fit and finish on this product are absolutely first rate and the brass fittings remind me of marine hardware found on a well built sailboat. I extended the legs, set up the back spreaders to lock into the front hinged bar, put in the pegs, set a 24 x 36 seascape with a heavy duty stretcher on the easel, tightened the top rod and walked off. I watched the easel for several hours. It was a breezy day but nothing moved. The horizontal spreaders plus the top tension rod on this easel makes it very strong and very stable. Although I've seen this easel used dozens of times by other painters, I was still surprised by strength of the tension system. After searching for a large pochade box to go with the easel, I finally built a 16 x 20 paint box out of maple and cherry wood. I also added a couple of fastex straps to hold my umbrella with the easel.

A few days later, I was painting on the southern Maine coast in less than ideal weather. It was cold, raw, windy and rainy and for most of the time, we were working on large beach rocks facing the open ocean. One morning while an intermittent 20 knot wind gusted off the water, I worked on a 16 x 20 painting for about 2 hours before the rain dove me and my friends inside. Did I finish my painting? No! Did my Take It Easel or my canvas move even with an umbrella and the wind gusts? Not one bit!! This easel is a real pleasure to use, a high quality, high performer, worth every cent. After this trip, I wonder why I waited so long to buy one of these! Yes, there are logistics issues if you paint on large canvasses and have a big paintbox but for me its certainly worth the extra effort to have a solid, high quality, functional platform that allows me to focus solely on my painting. If you are looking to paint large works outside, I highly recommend the Take It Easel.