Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Creating Another Hand (flex tool)

I was inspired recently by Carol Marine's description of how to use an adjustable arm with clamps on both ends as an extra "hand" to hold a viewfinder when painting still lifes from her book DAILY PAINTING (pp 82 - 84). Thank you Carol for sharing your ideas!

Now, I said to myself,  I can also use this to hold a reflector card when I photograph my artwork.

After researching the cost of this tool and reading some reviews of the quality of ready-made versions, I found this interesting video by knoptop on YouTube showing how to make a flexible clamp from an old lamp. Thank you knoptop for this video!

Below is my clamp that I made from an old lamp after watching knoptop's video. The lamp I found in a thrift for $3 already had a clamp on one end, so I removed the light fixture and replaced it with a smaller clamp to hold my viewfinder or reflector card; a small piece of flexible foam fills some of the space within the clamp for a secure hold.