TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT 311
pieces which can be fastened in place; many have tilting devices to allow the
canvas to be tipped forward at the top; others are fitted with sliding trays that
can be adjusted at different heights. The wood of such easels has to be light but
well seasoned and carefully selected; it is usually a light hardwood. When closed,
most easels are about 30 to 36 inches long and open to a height of 5 or 6 feet.
In a sense, this is the same as the traditional three-legged easel used during the
Middle Ages and the Renaissance. In a drawing by Jan Asselijn (1610-1652),
* Dutch Painters in Rome/ a regular easel with pegs is seen in use by a landscape
painter. On it is a large canvas. Another of the figures is sitting on the ground,
evidently drawing on a board. When out-of-door sketching became a widespread
practice for amateurs, the number and variety of sketching easels increased. One
model even supplied a combination in a single mechanism of sketching seat and
easel together, and this in 1849 was described as £. . . the most convenient and
pleasant apparatus ever introduced for the Lady Sketcher.' Such combinations
were still shown in 1889, but the models now offered are less complicated in design.
Sketching Frame, a light, wooden, rectangular frame or panel made for holding
water color paper. It is provided with strips that go along the edges and are held
in place with metal clips. Usually the paper is wetted, stretched over the frame,
and held in place by the strips and side clips. These frames are rectangular, as
produced for the market, and vary in size from 6 to 20 inches.
Sketching Stool, a light, portable stool with collapsible frame of wood or metal,
used for out-of-door sketching.
Sketching Tent (see Shade and Shelter).
Sketching Umbrella (see also Shade and Shelter), an umbrella with a diameter
of about 3^ feet, made with a staffer stalk in two or three parts that can be fitted
together to a length of 6 or 7 feet. The upper end of the staff has a set screw so
that the canopy can be adjusted at different angles. The lower end tapers to a
metal spike that can be set into the ground.
Slab (see Grinding Slab), a flat stone or glass used for the grinding of pigments,
the word is applied, also, to a porcelain tile with small wells used in tempera
painting, illumination, and similar fine work. These slabs are different from tiles
and slants only in minor details (see also Tile).
Slant (see also Tile), a porcelain container, usually for a number of colors,
made with depressions in the upper side (figure 26). The typical slant has three or
six inversely wedge-shaped divisions and is rectangular in its general outline* The
depressions are rectangular in plan and taper down from the level of the surface
to a depth of a quarter inch or more. There are other shapes which are circular,
the deeper part of the depression being towards the center.
Slice, a tool with a blade of metal or wood, used principally as a scraper (figure
24). Although the word has been applied to various kinds of spatulas, it is usually
intended to indicate one with a scraping edge at right angles to the handle like
that of the putty knife. Thompson (The Practice of Tempera Painting^ p. 37)