For beginners and professionals alike, this video workshop offers detailed instructions that you can follow step by step as you build your own lightweight sketching easel. The Gurney Easel is compact and versatile, perfectly suited to sketchbooks and small panels. It is easy and inexpensive to make, the result of decades of tinkering and refinement. Gurney lays out all the tools and materials you’ll need, and he shows alternate methods for those who don’t have many power tools. He shares behind-the-scenes coverage of how to fabricate not only the easel, but also four different sunlight diffusers, each of which is a big improvement over the traditional artists’ umbrella.

Running time: 64 minutes, 720p HD widescreen video.

“Gurney presents the material in such a way that it always appears completely obtainable, if one is simply willing to put in the necessary time and practice. There is nothing like seeing someone demonstrate how they do something. It cuts through all the malarkey, helps to calm ones fears and it gets right to the heart of the matter.”

Ralph Giguere, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia