1. The best easels: floor standing
2. The best easels: tabletop easels
3. FAQs
4. How to choose
5. How we test
Buying one of the best easels for painting is more than just an investment into your studio; it’s also an investment for your health, helping to ensure good posture, which can also benefit the quality of your work.
We’ve combined our own expertise with expert insights from our pool of professional artist contributors to curate a selection of easels that will fit a wide variety of needs. We’ve assessed the build quality, size, price and versatility of a variety of easels and made sure to include something for everyone in our list below, whether you’re a plein air painter needing a light and portable easel or you’re painting large canvases in a studio.
We’ve got a host of guides to help you stock your studio, offering advice for everything from the best coloured pencils and the best oil paints to hardware that will help you reproduce your art with accuracy like the best art printers and best light boxes for tracing and drawing.
The best easels for painting: floor standing
Height: 48 inches
This is my pick as the best easel overall. It's sturdy and well-built and has a square base with lockable castors for easy mobility and optimal lighting. I found it to be highly adjustable, accommodating canvases up to 48 inches tall, and offers easy tilting, folding and a handy storage tray for supplies.
Height: 78 inches
If sturdiness and size are important, I found this Medeen easel to be a great choice for larger canvases. It has strong and moveable hinges and rubber grips that provide resistance. This does come at the expense of wheels for mobility, but the easel won't shake or wobble. I found it super easy to assemble, too.
Height: 93 inches
Working on even larger canvases? This Viswin easel is constructed from quality beech wood, and it adjusts to up to 146 inches high. That means it'll comfortably hold a canvas that's up to 93 inches tall: perfect for larger artworks. Best of all, it's got wheels, making it great for mobility.
Height: 47 inches
The options above are on the larger side. If you want something lighter, I think this is a solid option, whether you're a professional artist or just dabbling. Mabel has a great reputation for its easels, which are known for their quality and longevity. This model is made from stain-resistant oiled beechwood. It's solid and expertly constructed, with a beautiful finish.
Height: 31 inches
This heavy-duty easel is very affordable, and portable enough to be suitable in different environments. I found it sturdy and lightweight enough to serve for travel. It also has a good amount of adjustment options and a ledge for storing tools. Putting it up outside isn't too much work either.
Height: 34 inches
Plein air painters will appreciate this large, adjustable easel that's primarily designed for outdoor use but is equally suitable for painting at home or in the studio. Made from oiled, stain-resistant beechwood with quality steel fittings, its adjustable legs make it easy to position the canvas for optimum painting.
Height: 48 inches
This easel's overall functionality is great. Although it’s not collapsible, the wheels make it easy to move around the studio as needed. You can also convert it into a horizontal easel, which I found made it perfect for watercolour painting or even just for extra table space.
Height: 48 inches
This field easel aluminum easel is an excellent option for outdoorsy painters, and you can even adjust each leg individually to ensure the easel stays stable on uneven ground. A spring clamp keeps your canvas firmly in place, but it still isn't as secure as fixed easels. Portability is the priority here.
Height: 29.5 inches
Designed for three- to six-year-olds, this versatile easel can be used as a dry-erase board, a chalkboard, or you can attach a piece of paper with the easy-clip grips included and crack out the paint or crayons. There are lots of added extras, too, and this easel folds flat for easy storage when not in use.
The best easels for painting: tabletop easels
Max canvas: 23 inches
If you're short on space, or just don't like painting standing up, this lovingly-made, affordable and compact H-frame could be the perfect option. Constructed from beechwood, I found it offered a very stable base for working on a table, and it can be tilted using seven adjustable settings from 41 degrees to 78 degrees.
Max canvas: 20 inches
This sturdy little fold-out boxed easel means you can pack away all of your paints, pencils and brushes. Inside are four compartments, and two locking clasps ensure it stays securely shut. It has no legs, but I love the attention to detail, for example, the rounded corners to prevent snagging.
Max canvas: 40 inches
This option is more expensive, but I found the build and finish to be of excellent quality. It can hold larger canvases than many table easels, and it's made from eco-friendly Lyptus, which is harder than oak. I found it to be super sturdy, with a wide base, a grove for a drawing board and plastic bumps to hold a canvas. The lower shelf adjusts upward, making it easier to move work to eye level.
Max canvas: 28 inches
This great, lightweight starter easel is not only good for sketching but also plein air painting. There is plenty of storage, which does add to the weight, but the best aspect for me was the range of adjustments it offers. The canvas size can be extended up to 28 inches.
Max canvas: N/A
This foldable kid-focused tabletop easel is made from high-quality wood. It comes with a host of extras, including five chalks, an eraser, 36 number and letter magnets, a built-in, 50-feet long paper roll, and a chalkboard side with coloured chalks. It's fun and should delight young artists.
Max canvas: 20 inches
If you're looking for something more compact than the sketchbox and frame tabletop easels that I've mentioned, and more of a display stand for your art, then this is a great value option. I'm not saying it's the most luxurious option, but if you simply want to display your art on a table, there's no need to pay more. It has rubber feet to avoid sliding and folds away neatly.
FAQs
What are the different types of easel?
There are two main types of easels used by artists. Tripod easels, as the name suggests, have three legs, and may include crossbars to make the easel more stable. H-Frame easels, again as you'd expect, resemble a letter 'H' and are constructed of two vertical posts with a horizontal crossbar support. Both types of design may have extra features for rotating the canvas and adjusting it horizontally and vertically.
Children's easels are generally simpler, smaller and more durable; the younger the target age range, the more so in all respects. Finally, tabletop easels are designed for artists with a limited amount of space, enabling them to angle their canvas while fitting onto a table or desk.
What's the best easel for painting?
The best easel for painting you can buy today is the US Art Supply Medium Wooden H-Frame Studio Easel. This solid and sturdy easel can hold a canvas up to 48 inches high, and can be tilted back if required. It folds flat for easy storage and the wheels make it portable for transporting. In short, it provides everything an artist might need, at a very reasonable price.
What's the best easel for children?
Melissa & Doug's wooden standing art easel is our top recommendation for kids. It's easy to assemble, folds away easily for storage, is well constructed, and has many great extras, including a dry-erase board, chalkboard, locking paper-roll holder, child-safe paper cutter and four easy-clip grips. Best of all, there are two removable large plastic trays for easy cleaning after your little ones have covered them in mess.
How to choose the best easel
Many factors dictate what kind of easel will be best for you. The first is where you paint. If it will always be in the studio, you'll want an easel that's as sturdy as possible, however heavy that makes it. (Although if you plan to move it around the room to capture the light, you'll want it to be on wheels.) If you mainly paint outdoors, though, you'll want a lighter easel that's easy to collapse and carry around. Too lightweight and flimsy, though, and it might tip over in a strong wind, so there's a balance to be struck there.
The overall size of your easel will depend on how big a canvas you like to work on, and what height you like to paint at. So it's important to check the dimensions of any easel before you buy it, measure this out with a tape measure, and make sure you're not going to be stooped over or stretching up too much.
Most easels are adjustable, but only within a certain range, so take that into account too. Also, if you use a heavy canvas, a lot of thick paint, and/or heavy collage pieces, think about the amount of weight your easel will need to support.
Finally, consider how you paint. If you like to be energetic, lively and passionate with your strokes, you may need something pretty sturdy to hold everything in place. Conversely, if your approach is more gentle and quiet, you'll be fine with a more lightweight frame.
How we test the best easels
To choose the best easels for this guide I asked for recommendations and feedback from the wide range of working artists who contribute reviews and tutorials to our site. I then tested the easels myself where possible or compared online reviews and specs based on my own experience as an artist. The factors that I took into consideration were structure and build quality, adjustability, and extra features such as groves for different supports and value. I've aimed to choose easels that suit different sizes of canvas and portable options too.
