French Easel NIGHTMARE

I had a horrible nightmare about my French easel!

It's no secret that I don't like French easels for plein air. I have one, an old Julian I got almost 20 years ago. I also have a half-box French easel someone gave me a few years ago. But I'm a pochade box-tripod kind of girl all the way.

My old Julian

Wednesday night I had a dream I was out painting, and for some reason I had my French easel instead of a pochade box. (I wondered why in the dream, too) So, I was painting and the ^%#^%(@#^(% easel kept changing height on me by itself! While I was in the middle of painting!

It looks so un-assuming

It would suddenly go about 10 feet higher, and the legs were constantly uneven no matter what I did.

Julian can be difficult

When I adjusted the legs, it would get too low. It tipped over. I would adjust one leg and another one (that I had just tightened) would change height.

Then, a big splintery chunk of the bottom where the painting sits just fell off!

My painting fell on the ground paint-side down.

My brushes fell and scattered.

I was so freaking mad at that stupid easel.

I gave up. I just couldn't paint anymore with that horrible evil thing.

Evil Easel

When I woke up, I was still mad at the damn thing.

GRRR

French easels are such a pain to set up and break down.  And they blow over very easily in the wind, especially being so top-heavy. And they are very heavy.

I'm hating on my Julian right now because it gave me a bad nightmare, but it probably deserves much more love.  For many, many years it was my only easel, and I used it as a tabletop easel which sat on my drawing table. Lots of paintings were made on it.

None of them were plein air.

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Two of Swords (upright)

Having to make a difficult decision and trying to avoid it. Could be avoidance, or lack of all the information you need in order to decide. Might also be a stalemate.