D.I.Y. Art Board Stand

This past week I got to try out my new homemade art board stand in the beautiful city of Pisa in Tuscany. About 80 km west of Florence, the ride took about one hour on a fast regional train. It was a day trip and my very first to this city with the famous tower that leans. I've posted my works in my usual slot at https://www.facebook.com/alvinmark.art. 

In case you are interested in making yourself one of these portable stands to hold your paper while you are sketching, here's a step by step on how it's done! Being out there urban sketching on a touch and go basis, I find this contrivance very light and quick to set-up. Having a sturdy board like this frees my other hand to hold my palette if the terrain does not accommodate sitting down like in this case when the ground is wet. 

1) I bought a camera tripod from the local street vendors. Next, I removed the mount.

2) Find a thick and sturdy enough chip board. The one I bought is 3mm thick. 

3) Also get a small piece of wood that is similar to the height of the tripod mount and shave that down to size. I used a good pen knife for that and sandpaper to even out the edges.

 4) Last but not least locate the middle of the board and super glue the little piece of wood down. And Waaaa-laaaah!  You have got yourself a practical and economical art board stand. :) 

Baptistry, Pisa

Gouache on watercolour paper.

Here's one of my favourite pieces from that day.