French Resistance plein air pochade box adaption

Guerrilla-Painter-Medium-Resistance-Pochade

I have had this box for a number of years but rarely used it because it lacked a pallet. The company, https://guerrillapainter.com/ , suggest using the area in front as a pallet, but that takes away storage space. Also the area is too deep for me personally plus it makes cleanup difficult.

My solution was to build a pallet platform out of ½ inch square dowels and dry erase board, 6" x 9 1/2". Any hard wood board would do, I chose the dry erase for easy clean up.

I cut four dowels to 1 inch lengths, pre-drilled four holes at each corner, glued and screwed the dowels in place. I used Hide glue to help keep the dowels in place while I screwed them on to the board.

The area below the palette can accommodate painting supplies, etc.

The result is a pallet that is functional and can be removed for easy clean up.

Update:

I installed cleats in the storage area so that the pallet can fit on top. 

The cleats add more strength to the pallet than the previous design.

This is the pallet area now. I replaced the previous pallet (dry erase board) with a birch panel. One thing that I would do next time is to lower the cleats a bit so that there is more of a lip for the pallet to prevent any access paint from running into another section.

September 2018 Daily Practice

Cloud Study

6 3/4 x 4 3/4

Acryla Gouache on mat board

w/c and gouache test

Drew scene on location with pencil in journal. Next day outlined all with pen and colored in with w/c pencils overlaying with a wash of water. Brought out some details by adding more color with the w/c pencils and then using white gouache washed over the colors I laid down. Adjusted the hue by adding more color or gouache depending on what was needed. As usual, the w/c dried lighter, even more so with the addition of the white gouache. Holbein gouache was used here. I suspect that if I try to darken the hues with w/c some of the layers below will lift. I will try Acryla gouache in the future as the bottom layers will  not lift. I read that a varnish coat will darken the colors. 

Homer Study

6 x 4 1/4

Gouache on board

 Wolf's Neck Woods

9 x 7

Graphite

Popham Beach

9 x 7

Watercolor