A New Pochade Box

A field study being made using a home made pochade box.

Over the winter I built a small 9" x 12" pochade box from some leftover walnut and plywood.  It spent about $15 on a few fittings and a small can of varnish, the rest was made from things I had laying around the house.

I constructed the bottom section of the box (i.e. the palette holder) with dovetails and inset the plywood base into a rabbet on the underside.  The lid/easel has a sliding mast and has horizontal slots so that a panel can be braced to it using miniature bungees.  The panel rest is adjustable.

The palette is a piece of glass taken from an old metal picture frame and cut to size.

I made the side brace adjustable so that it can be locked in a range of positions. This enables the entire pochade box to be angled and still preserve a correct working position.

The side tray is a $3 plastic kitchen tray that I found at the grocery store.  I fashioned some clips from shower curtain hooks and it seems to be sturdy enough.

The pochade box can be used as a desktop sketch box or mounted on a tripod (as shown).  The tripod I have is a ball head type with carbon fibre legs and center post.  It will easily hold 20lbs.

 

A home made pochade box on a carbon-fiber tripod.

Starting a painting in our back yard.


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