The best easels for painting in 2024

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The best easels for painting do more than just hold your canvas. They can transform how you work, aid your posture and even improve the quality of your painting. To find the very best for you to choose from, we've consulted the professional artists that contribute their expertise to Creative Bloq and they've drawn up this comprehensive list, including the best plein air easels and easels for kids. 

Our reviwers have considered versatility, build quality and price, starting with floor-length easels and wrapping up with the best tabletop easels. The one you choose will largely depend on where you normally work. For plein air, you'll want one that's light and portable, but if you're working in a studio and have the space to leave an easel fixed, you might want a more solid structure that can hold large canvases and last a long time. 

To complete your kit, don't miss our other guides to the best coloured pencils and the best oil paints. And finally if you want to reproduce your art with accuracy, then also take a look the best art printers and best light boxes for tracing and drawing.

The best easels for painting: floor standing

The best easels for painting: tabletop easels

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 comes with lots of 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 large plastic trays that can be removed for easy cleaning after your little ones have covered them in mess.

How to choose the best easel

There are many factors which dictate what kind of easel will be best for you. The first is where you paint. If it's always going to 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 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, 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.

Ian Dean
Editor, Digital Arts & 3D

Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creativebloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and leading video game title Official PlayStation Magazine. In his early career he wrote for music and film magazines including Uncut and SFX. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on AI, digital art and video game art and tech, and more to Creative Bloq, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5. He's also a keen Cricut user and laser cutter fan, and is currently crafting on Glowforge and xTools M1.

With contributions from