Never happier than when balancing on a sea cliff or a lakeland mountainside, Glyn Macey loves painting in the great outdoors. It’s what inspires his work, which can be found in collections across the world, and he’s keen to share his passion. The TV series A Brush with the Landscape featured Glyn visiting and painting a whole host of National Trust properties while talking his audience through the creative process of painting en plein air.
Restless and creative
This wandering lifestyle took hold when I worked on a fundraising project for the RNLI in 2009 and painted all around the English coast. It took me from Berwick-upon-Tweed in Northumberland, along the south coast as far west as the Isles of Scilly and finally north again all the way up to the Solway Firth on the Scottish borders. I lived in my van and ate far too many portions of fish and chips. It was great and I loved it. But I wasn’t that keen on carrying all of my painting paraphernalia with me.
Equipment overload
My usual set up consisted of a large old toolbox crammed full of stuff that I never really used and a bashed up unwieldy portfolio that I used to carry my various boards, and which acted as an impromptu easel. When I was touring and painting the English coast my arms began to ache more and more, so much so that when I returned home I began to research viable alternatives to my toolbox/portfolio set up.
The 180 studies that I had painted had only been 12″ x 10″, so I really didn’t need the large portfolio, and as for my box of tricks, I only used a few acrylic colours and a couple of brushes. I thought that there must be an easier way and of course there was: the box easel. A box easel is a transportable box that opens up as a full height easel with space for paints and brushes inside. So I bought a bamboo Winsor & Newton Windrush Field Box Easel. I used it and I loved it. The easel is neat and compact. It is light enough to carry up and down cliffsides and sturdy enough to stand up to a force nine gale. The easel has space for six tubes of acrylics (I am loving the Artists’ Acrylics – no colour shift) [now called Professional Acrylic], a couple of brushes (my favourites are No 8 Round and No 16 Filbert, plus a scrappy decorator’s brush) and the other bits and bobs that I love to apply paint with: sponges, a toothbrush and a craft knife.
The best thing about the Windrush Field Box Easel is that it is easy to adapt to your preferred choice of material, whether water-based, oil-based, pastels or pencils. Since returning from my English coast experience I have taken the concept inland, painting at 100 National Trust locations, again often hiking up hills and over rivers with my Windrush Field Box Easel, and it’s never let me down.
