impromptu work surfaces

It was so lovely outside yesterday that I thought it would be fun to work on a new piece of painted cloth outside.

One little problem…

I didn’t particularly want to lay my fabric on the grass – after all, my three dogs share the backyard too!

I’ve got a spare worktable downstairs – but it’s got a disassembled computer on it and I didn’t feel like dealing with that either.

Time to get creative!

I knew we had a long, narrow piece of plywood out in the garden shed, so I propped it up onto two chairs.   It was a little too narrow, so I put two large plastic cutting mats on top of that.

Hmm… there’s a seam where the two mats meet – that’s definitely going to cause problems with painting…

Duct tape!

I duct taped the two mats together, covered them with garbage bags and voila!  I’ve got a painting table outside!

One more little problem…

It’s starting to get windy.

Big page clamps will do the trick – one on each corner holds the fabric down nicely so I can paint.

Here’s one corner of the worktable:

It worked beautifully and I got to enjoy the sunshine while I got my work done

image: © C Findlay-Harder