My Art Hobby!
Here's a few of my very amateur
watercolours. Don't laugh!!
This was my first 30x20"
painting. It sold for £150 at an exhibition in
Horwich
Competition Winner!
 
I'm delighted to say that last night (3 Oct 2008) I
won the Judge's Choice prize and took home
the Jack Birchall Memorial Cup for my painting
"The Arrangement"
Equipment
CLICK PHOTO TO LOOK AROUND
The Jullian Pochade box is a lovely
piece of kit, but sadly, it takes canvas panels
which are 220x160mm in size and they are extremely
difficult to get hold of. Well, the UK importers of
the pochade box sell them but they're over £3 each
compared to £1 for a similar sized Daler board.
To overcome this, I made some "reducers" which allow
me to use common 10x8", 8x6", 7x5" and 6x4" boards.
All I did was get a piece of U-shaped plastic trim
from B&Q and cut lengths to size, then superglued
them onto the 220x160mm boards from Jullian. Works a
treat and will save me a fortune. In fact, the
Jullian Pochade Box just became a hell of a lot more
flexible!!
OPEN BOX M
POCHADE
In addition to the Jullian, I've also got a larger
pochade box made by those master craftsmen in
America - the
Open Box M guys. It's a 10x12 Black Walnut
kit and is superbly designed and made from the
finest materials. A lot of thought has gone into it.
Some people get a little confused with these OBM's,
thinking that the box itself is the pochade, but it
isn't. The box is merely a carrier for the much
lighter, tripod-mounted device shown below....
The Open Box M Pochade really is very
well made. Apart from being incredibly practical and
functional, it also gives you great of pride of
ownership. They don't come cheap (especially when
you have to import them into the UK, but I got
extremely lucky when someone else went through the
pain of buying one, never used it and decided to
sell it on Ebay. For some weird reason, the bidding
only went to £45. The lady had paid around £350 for
it with all the accessories she'd bought.
Although the whole box weighs around 6lbs, it comes
with a very comfortable shoulder strap which makes
it barely noticeable as you trek around looking for
that perfect composition. Don't forget though that
you need to carry a tripod as well. Having said
that, there are lots of fantastic tripods that are
ultra-light and compact. And remember, if you want
to travel light, you can simply pop the
panel/palette into a rucksack with your paints and
brushes and leave the carrying-box at home.
The box not only carries the palette/panel, but it
also holds your paints, brushes, knives, and it even
has a built-in wet canvas carrier! The kit I bought
also has a spare brass tray which fits on the side,
a kitchen roll holder and a brass brush-can. You'll
see from the photos that it also comes with a
palette-extender which fits very neatly to the side
(left or right).
The 12x10" pochade will actually hold painting
boards up to 18" wide, so it's extremely versatile.
Needless to say, you can't store an 18" panel in the
box though. In addition to the convenient canvas
panel boards that are so common now, it is also
perfectly capable of holding a traditional stretcher
canvas with its unique mounting system.
Unlike my Jullian Pochade, the panel-bracket is
extremely well designed, holding the panel very
firmly in place with no fear of any unwanted
movement as you paint. Overall, an excellent bit
of kit!!
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