The Cable Easel: Stretching Canvas

In this one-hour show recorded Feb. 19, 1985, Patricia Windrow takes us step by step through the process of putting a painting canvas together from the raw materials: four wooden stretchers, a piece of canvas, staples and wedges, using as tools a small hammer, razor blade, canvas pliers, and a large sketchbook for squaring the quadrangle up. Then she proceeds to paint a landscape on this newly constructed canvas using only five colors, one brush, and as reference material a hasty sketch from a car ride. During all this, she gives reasons to learn to stretch your own canvas, and answers callers’ questions about how to get oil paints to dry faster, how to keep multiple wet paintings separated during transport, whether a beginner should use oil paints or watercolors, and how to approach depicting one’s inner vision, as opposed to painting from life.

Following the program is a virtual gallery tour of Windrow works similar to the one she just painted.

Patricia Windrow’s award-winning series “The Cable Easel” (1979 – 1994: Local ACE award, the 1990 12th Annual National Academy of Cable Programming competition for Best Informational/Demonstrational Series; winner, the 1989 National Federation of Local Cable Programmers Hometown Video Festival) have been digitized so new generations of artists can benefit from her charm, infectious humor, expertise, contagious enthusiasm and unique instructional gifts.

Patricia, featured in “Who’s Who in American Art”, took it upon herself to debunk assertions that house painting brushes were perfectly acceptable tools for fine art, or that such art could be completed in half an hour: she gave us the unvarnished truth about painting, untarnished by the slick lacquer of pretense.

Liked the show? Then “like” it here on the Tube, and subscribe to this channel; and remember: keep your brushes clean!

(The music is “Juniper Springs”, ©1981 Adam Klein.)