Best Art Easel Reviews 2023

Price, price, price. This is one of the most limiting factors for most people when buying any product. Come to think of it, if you had all the money in the world, you’d probably get on the internet and pick the most expensive easel you see. The reason you’re doing this research is that you want to the get the best art easel out there that can fit into your budget. We understand that perfectly. For this reason, we’ve researched numerous art easels within the vast price range of $7 to $1600. But that’s NOT the range we’re working with in this review. We’re restricting things to a sweet spot where you’d get good quality at the right price: $17 for the low end and $170 for the higher end.

What we did was to look for great features in the expensive ones and see which of them exist in the not so expensive ones, thereby providing you with a list of valuable art easels that will most likely fit into your budget. After all, the most expensive art easels in the market may not be the best art easel for your painting needs.

Your choice of an ideal art easel is dependent on the kind of painting you do. For artists that work on large scale canvases, a table top easel will be a waste of money and for artists who work on small scale and in a confined space, a giant easel will be most inconveniencing. You may consider the nature of your job also. A vigorous painter should look for a sturdy easel that can stand the pressure of the vigorous painting. Like we said earlier, your work mode goes a long way in affecting your choice of easel too. A water color painter may not go for the same easel as an oil or acrylic painter. Well, these are not the only factors that affect your choice of an easel. There are features peculiar to certain easels that may be necessary for the type of job you do.

Let us look at some of them:

• Style of easel – French style, field, streamlined, etc.
• Adjustable height – The height that it can be adjusted to
• Portability – For moving the easel around
• Material – Oak, beechwood, aluminum, etc.
• Capacity – Size of canvas it can accommodate
• Additional Features – Drawers, palettes, etc.
• Assembly – Ease of assembly
• Stability – Stability of the stand
• Space – How much space do you have?

Want to know the importance of these features and how you can work them into choosing your art easel? Then come along with us!

Understanding the style of easel you’re looking at will help you determine if it’s the right easel for you. Your easel can be French style – has a sketchbox, a canvas and an easel that can be easily folded away; field style – doesn’t have a sketchbox, just the easel and the canvas; streamlined style - these are mostly for displays and presentations. This means that your kind of art and its requirements determines which of the styles you can go for.

It’s best to go for easels that have adjustable height; it gives you versatility in doing your work. You can choose to sit and paint or stand instead. An easel with a fixed height does not give you that option. Also, for children’s easel, this is a top feature to put into consideration, unless you want to buy a new easel every time your child grows taller!

If you are a Plein Air artist or painter, buying a giant easel would mean buying something that would not be of use to you except when you have a studio where you want to place it in. If your major mode of painting is outdoor, you need to go for a portable easel, maybe a lyre easel. Also, if you don’t have a studio that’s designated for your work, you’re probably using your sitting room as a makeshift studio which means you are limited by space; it’s more advisable to go for a portable and foldable easel that you can easily put out of the way when you’re done working.

Most art easels are made of wood but there are different types of woods. You have oak wood, the common beechwood and the hybrid of 2 types of Eucalyptus wood – Lyptus. Research has it that the Lyptus is stronger than the oak wood which is stronger than the beechwood. There are also aluminum easels. They aren’t as sturdy as the wood easels but they serve a lot of beginners and art students. If you’re looking for something to start with while you gather enough money to invest in your ideal easel, the aluminum easel can serve you temporarily.

Your easel should be easy to assemble. You don’t need an easel that’ll require you calling an expert whenever you need to set it up. If that’s the case for a studio easel, it’s quite understandable, but for a portable easel or children’s easel, it should be as simple as possible to assemble.

One of the major features to look out for in your easel is the capacity of the easel. This means the dimensions of the canvas that can fit on the easel. As stated above in the consideration factors, every type of easel has a dimension of canvas it can accommodate. You cannot buy an A frame easel when you want to paint on a 120-inch tall canvas. Of course, you know it won’t work. So, look out for the capacity of your easel before picking it up.

Every artist loves convenience and that’s why most artists will go for an easel with additional features that can help make his work easier. An easel with drawers that’ll accommodate your paint supplies will make work a lot easier for you since you can just place your paints and brushes in this drawer. Some other easels come with palettes. These palettes may not suit your color scheme or may not be the type of paint you work with but there are some artists who will love it. Your children’s easel should also come with additional features like magnetic boards, chalkboards, paint drawers, etc. These additional features even add to the stability of the children’s easels.

Most H frames are the most stable types of easels you’ll find in the market because their stands are made to “sit” on a base. The long framed “feet” create enough stability for it. It is not as though other types of easels are not stable, most A frames and portable easels are designed to withstand vigorous painting pressure.

Your available space is key in choosing your art easel. If space limits you, it’s more advisable to go for easels that are easy to be folded away. However, if you have a designated studio and you work on a large scale, there’s nothing wrong with having sturdy and standard easels.