Artist Easel for Drawing and Painting
[toc]
The easel is a must have supporting artist equipment for drawing and painting. It is nothing but a special kind of frame for holding drawing canvas. Easels have been used by the 1st Century Romans and the ancient Egyptians. The use of Easel in the drawing has led to Easel painting which is used to describe portable paintings as opposed to paintings executed on the walls. Easel became very popular from the 13th Century.
Types of Easel
There are various types of Easel which include:
A-frame Easel
These are easels that are triangular in shape and have three legs; two in front and one behind. They are easy to store away because their third leg can be pushed forward to flatten them. They are fragile and not as dense as other easel types and can take canvas of 40’’ to 80’’.
H-frame Easel
This easel is shaped like ‘H’ and has a base. It is denser than the A-frame and it takes up more space. Some of them can be collapsed like the A-frame and they have space for inserting your space. The typical H-frame easel takes 84’’ to 96’’ sized canvas
Giant Easel
These are meant large paintings, with canvas up to 8ft. There are heavy and are not meant to be moved about, unlike A-frame or the H-frame.
Hybrid Easel
It is also called convertible easel because it can convert to a flat top table. Its versatile nature lets artists conduct all their affairs without having to change position. Oil painting would require upright position, that is, the conventional position of easels but watercolor painting requires flat surfaces.
The Hybrid Easel can handle paintings up to 84’’ tall.
Single Mast Easel
These Easels are easy to use because of their simple design. They are not sturdy and can easily be carried about. They are narrow and adjustable to fit a wide range of canvas sizes even up to 72’’ tall.
Table Top Easel
These are portable easels that are convenient for carrying about. They can be placed on a table to aid paintings of various media. There also come in the A-frame and H-frame designs and have a compartment where small and portable equipment can be stored. They can carry canvas as tall as 32”.
Plein Air Easel
Plein Air Easel is a portable easel and was designed for outdoor paintings. They are made of aluminum or wood and can carry quite easily. Some come with compartments for keeping artist’s supplies and shelve for a color palette. Depending on the size, they can take paintings of 45” to 78”.
Wrapping Up
Today, we can buy easel not only for the professional artist but also “Kids Easel” for kids. These kinds of easels are smaller in size and can set size options as well. Kids Easels are colorful in most cases with options for drawers and shelves for drawing materials. Multiple kids can also work with a single easel as there are options for up to 3 canvases!
Easel Definition
