Open box M pochade Boxes

[Jholdren]

Does anybody here own a pochade box made by Open Box M? I have a full size french easel which works well when I paint locally, but I was looking for somthing more compact to take on painting trips so I can travel light. I heard Open Box M had some excellent pochade boxes that were compact? Does anyone here own one? If so, is it really less to transport than a French easel or should I not waste my money?

P.S. - Would love some feedback on my plein air work. A few of them are in my store at www.stores.ebay.com/justinholdrenfineart - Thanks!

[JamieWG]

Justin, welcome to Wetcanvas! I don't have an Open Box M, but hopefully someone will be along shortly who can answer your questions. In the meantime, you may want to check out my article on "Featherweight Plein Air Painting". Although it is a setup designed for oils, you may get some ideas from it. The article is here:

http://www.wetcanvas.com/Articles2/13766/399/

Thank you for sharing your plein air work. What an unusual lighthouse! You sure have painted a wide variety of scenes.

Jamie

[E-J]

Justin, I'm starting to investigate plein air kit and happen to have just read the very helpful reviews of the Maier pochade boxes in the Reviews section of this site. They're at: http://www.wetcanvas.com/Community/Products/censura.php?tsid=1&csid=f9b3daca4c1a84d1ecae2197b7 c82041&cmd=details&itemid=1310

Hope this helps

[Jholdren]

Thanks for the information everyone! I love this site and the interaction with other artists!

[Marc Sabatella]

I wrote one of the reviews of this that you will see by following the link E-J already posted. Responding more directly, I personally do find these boxes a significant enough improvement over a French easel to make it worthwhile for someone who does a lot of plein aire painting. The savings in weight is really significant; I'd think nothing of carrying mine for an hour wandering around looking the best place to paint, whereas with a French easel, I'm always ready to settle to for the first place that looks even remotely promising. The fact that you can store several wet paintings inside is another big plus. And they seem much less fragile during transport.

But realistically, this is all true of *any* pochade box. The features of the Open Box M that differentiate it from others are its ability to easily handle larger canvases, and the fact that you can use it with a relatively lightweight tripod. I find that just hanging my water bottle from my (very light) tripod is enough to keep the whole thing from falling over in winds heavy enough to be constantly blowing by brushes and so forth off the easel. But if you'd rather simply use a sturdier tripod in the first place, and don't mind working 9x12 or smaller most of the time, there are other boxes that are significantly cheaper. Still, if you get the lightweight "student kit" from Open Box M as I did, you kind of get the best of both worlds - and even lighter.

[Jholdren]

Thanks Marc. I think I will try the student kit from Open Box M. I do large studio work which I sell in a gallery, but almost all of my Ebay auctions are my plein air work. I paint outdoors so much, that I think I will invest in something lighter for those long trips! Thanks again everyone!

[midcoast]

The Open Box M pochade boxes are wonderful! I'm getting myself one for a Christmas present I like the fact that they're lightweight and can carry a variety of sizes of panels. I think they're well worth the extra money over some of the cheaper pochade boxes.

Nancy

[b123]

I've bought, and used a lot of pochade boxes over the years. One issue worth thinking about his how do you store your panels?

When working small I like to work with 6X8, 8X10, 9X12, and 11X14 panels. I also on occasions like to work with even larger panels (16X20, or 16X24). The problem with most systems is that they only handle one or two sizes. Also some pochade boxes I've looked at only handle 1/8 in thick panels and will not fit the lightweight 1/4" gatorboard panels I like to use when travelling. After trying dozens of different systems over the past 10 years, this is what I now use:

1. The best commercial product I've found is Marc Sabatella's system - it is lightweight and very flexible:
http://www.outsideshore.com/school/art/easel/wet.htm
I just ordered a few different sizes from Marc and was very pleased. This is why I like this system over all the others I've tried:

• you only have to carry two panels of the same size (most boxes limit you to one or two sizes). This means that you can easily carry several different sizes with you, without having a lot of empty slots in your panel carrier box, thus saving both space and weight.
  
• the width of a two panel set is the theoretical minimum (since it uses the panels themselves as the outer box), so they do not take up much space, and are very light.
  
• they are very sturdy (more sturdy than my homemade gatorboard panels)
  

2. the cheapest approach I've found is making your own out of gatorboard and duct tape. You can make a very light 3-panel carrier (3 is the optimal size- two on the outside facing in, and one on the inside facing out), but it is not as sturdy as Marc's system. You'll have to repair it every year or two. However that is not too difficult as all you need is duct tape. Gatorboard is expensive though and you have to buy a lot of it.

Considerations when buying a pochade box

• you do not need to store panels in the box
• you do not need to keep your brushes and tubes in the pochade box (it is a waste of weight - use a bag instead)
• get the largest size palette you can and load it up with paint before you go (you'll save a lot of weight on carrying paint tubes)
• get the lightest box you can find that meets these criteria

Considerations when buying a tripod

• rigidity is critical
• lightweight is critical

The problem with these two criteria is that they usually work against each other. If you buy a cheap tripod that is light, you will most likely find your pochade box (if you use a 11X14 size) will wobble. That gets very annoying after a while, particularly when it is windy. I have used a Bogen tripod in the past, which is very rigid, but the weight of the tripod makes my pochade box painting system almost as heavy as my Soltek aluminum easel system, which lets me paint much larger, and lets me use a nice large palette. So what is the point of using a pochade?

I now have 5 tripods and have finally decided to scrap them all and buy a Gitzo G1158T carbon fibre tripod (only 2.1 lbs). Several of my professional painter friends have already gone this route. My philosophy is if you are serious about painting, buy the best - you'll never regret it in the long term, and you won't end up (like me) with dozens of unused painting systems wasting space in your garage! In any case, you only have to sell one extra painting to pay for something that will last you 20 years.

I plan to use this tripod with my Open Box M 11X14 pochade.

Just one final note, I have not actually used one, so I hesitate to recommend it, but Marc Sabatella has a Monarch Portable easel which weighs in at 2.7 lbs. My Open Box M 11X14 is 3 lbs 8 oz plus a 6 oz tray, making a total weight of over 4 lbs. So Marc's system with a Gitzo tripod would be 4.8 lbs, versus the Open Box M system of 6.2 lbs.

Barry

my plein air paintings: http://www.bjrgallery.com

[Bill Wray]

Love mine, I wouldn't go back to a FE for anything.

[manfrommerriam]

Yeah, an OBM, (or the like) is smaller, lighter and easier to set-up than a French easel. I have a couple of OBMs and really like them but would suggest you look at the Judson's Gorilla Box (which I also use) and the Artwork Escencials EasyL products and all of the many accessories before you plunk down the bucks. They are all well made. As for a tripod, get a good one; The Bogen/Manfrotto 3001N is so popular for this use that it is almost a plein-air icon; Mine I've cut-down to be smaller when collapsed. You may want a ball-head and the bigger the easel the bigger the ball-head to control slipping. Theres some bucks! You really need a tripod "stone bag" so that weight can be added if the wind kicks up. I have done well on e-Bay in regards to tripods... but then I can fix them. As for wet canvas transport. You need to look at what you are doing to determine your needs. Plenty of good advice in the comments others have made above. One tip I'd pass on is that if your car is right there, you can blue-tape the panel edges and right after painting peel the tape leaving a clean edge. This allows you to put them on the car floor or in the trunk without grief.
Have fun, Dave

[Carey]

I would agree on the Bogen Tripod - very sturdy & long lasting! BUT I bought a Gorilla and HATE it - too, too heavy and awkward, don't like to have to buy/insert the 'liners' to hold the smaller panels, can't really use bigger panels. In fact, I'd like to get rid of mine. I never use it, I use the Easyl Lite (you can google it), which really is lightweight and will hold 2 panels. Actually I just keep a couple of those rectangular short sided boxes like from a case of spring water in the back of the car and put the wet panels there for the ride home. Check out the 'Easyl', but everyone I know has an Open Box M and loves them. Good luck.

[frisbee1948]

The Open M paintbox is excellent. I have several kinds but this is the only one I ever use anymore.

I would think twice before buying a kit, however. By a "Kit", I mean the package with the wet panel carrier and the case that holds everything. I never use the wet panel carrier (there are better ways to carry wet panels) and, if you are not carefull, you may end up with a case that you never use.

They have a variety of cases to choose from. I use the back pack and it is fine for my purposes. Some of the other cases are more like suit cases that would be good for travelling on a plane, but are too heavy and/or cumbersome to walk very far with. Nake sure to get one that fits your needs.

I can say this: all of their products are very well made and the customer service is excellent (although they are sometimes difficult to reach--usually you have to leave a message and they will call you back.)

[surfer]

Aloha from Hawaii

I also have just about all the easels, french easel, soltek, guerilla and 3 open box Ms.

I use only the open box easels after the others not making the grade for one reason or another. FE too big and heavy, soltek kept breaking the legs, and guerilla has a rather strange pallette area. I love the OPe Box M 12x16 pallette. it holds very large paintings and a bigger mixing surface than either the french or the soltek. I highly recommend it.

Hang ten

[fiatlux]

I have quite a few Openbox M's as well as the French Easel and the Soltek easel. The OpenBox M is beautiful and that helps is some way that hard to describe. All pochade boxes are lighter than the French Easel and there are quite a few on the market.

However, if you are really trying to absolutely minimize your load, a tripod without the "head", a dowel, and a flat piece of 1/4 inch plywood with a hole in it for the dowel as a palette whatever size you like, and another small piece of plywood with a hole in it and a shelf to hold what your painting on is all you need. Plus a few clamps. You'll have to make it yourself.

However, what weighs the most is the paint itself. It's good to learn to use a limited palette. Some great landscape painters used three colors plus white. One possible palette is a cool red like Aliz. Crimson, Cad Red, Cad Orange, Cad Yellow Light, Thalo Green, Ultamarine Blue, and White. You make a dark by mixing the Aliz Crimson and Thalo Green, brown by mixing blue and orange. If you put a little bit of thalo green into ultramarine blue you can get a cobalt-like blue. This is Kevin MacPherson's palette.

Then there's the umbrella problem that no one has solved in terms of how to minimize the load. You can get a clip on umbrella in baby stores that were originally designed for strollers, and I understand they are really cheap in big box stores.


Richard

[Donald_Smith]

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=326935

If you're any good at wood working, you can follow the link above and make your own pochade box.

Don
PS: Hi Barry! I'm enjoying your art course. If you're curious to see one of my paintings, then follow this link.

http://www.wetcanvas.com/forums/showthread.php?t=380942