mreidsma - Post a comment

I needed a way to make my drawing desk portable, so that I could easily work on my strip while on vacation, and so I could easily relocate anywhere in the house when I needed to. My solution was to modify this wooden drawing case to hold all of my supplies as well as serve as a drawing surface. I have a lot of photos behind the cut.

Inside the case everything is packed up tight.

The drawing surface and support act as covers for the compartments underneath.

All of my drawing supplies (and letter writing supplies) fit nicely inside the felt-lined compartments. Since I made the partitions, I sized them to fit the items I was using.

The front compartment has a lid and holds my pencil, eraser, pens and brush pen. My real brushes are in the long center compartment with my rulers. I'm still looking for a small ink container that will fit inside!

I modified the ridiculous palette that came with the box to act as a support for the lid. It slides into holders I repurposed from the original, crappy compartments.

The support holds the lid up at the best angle for drawing. Here is a shot of it in action. It looks like it's bending but it isn't; there is a curve cut out on that end.

Here's a shot of the lid at the right angle. But who wants to draw on that wood? Not me...

The masonite drawing surface has metal on the back, and attaches to the lid by high-powered magnets affixed inside the lid of the box. It doesn't slide at all when I'm drawing, and there are no fixtures to use to keep it attached. Thank Wendy for this awesome idea! I also added a little pen ledge because I like to leave my pencil and the artwork lying around sometimes while I refill my coffee mug.

Here it is in action! Lighting is still an issue when I'm not at my desk, but I'm trying to find a nice, compact flexible lamp that will run on batteries. Any ideas?

UPDATE: boxbrown sent this to Make Zine and they posted it! Thanks, Brian and Make!