Are you thinking of adding an easel to your studio but find the numerous choices overwhelming? Here I hope to give you some insight into easel options and share with you what some other botanical artists are using.
Post by Mary Crabtree, Botanical Artist and ABA Education Team Member
I began my botanical art journey working ‘on the flat’, with no angle to the surface on which my paper rested. Early on this was my kitchen countertop but soon I moved on to an adjustable drafting table that could be angled slightly. At the time I was working mainly in colored pencil and spent a lot of time trying to catch my pencils as they rolled off my angled table! As I spent more time on my artwork I began to experience neck and back stiffness from working long hours on a flat or slightly angled surface and on larger pieces I found it difficult to see areas that were too distant from me. So, I began searching for an easel.
If you look up the origin of the word ‘easel’ you find:
easel (n.)
1590s, from Dutch ezel "easel," originally "ass," from Middle Dutch esel, from Latin asinus "ass" (see ass (n.1)); the comparison being of loading a burden on a donkey and propping up a painting or canvas on a wooden stand. (etymonline.com)
There are many different easel types. There are A-frame, H-frame, convertible (hybrid), single mast, tabletop, portable (plein air/sketchbox) and display easels. There is even a ‘donkey’ easel, no doubt in deference to the word origin. I must say it does not look comfortable!
I found plenty of good information regarding things to consider when choosing an easel. The media you work in and the size and weight of your artworks should influence whether you need enhanced durability and stability or if you might prefer a smaller, lighter weight or possibly portable design. Ergonomics is another consideration. You will spend many hours working at your easel so it should have the adjustability and comfort features that best suit how you work. And budget and studio space are also important factors.
With these things in mind I sifted through the options available online. I quickly become overwhelmed with too many choices. Buying an easel is an investment and I didn’t want to choose poorly. Finally, I queried members of a botanical artist social media group about what they used and why. As usual, this very generous community of artists came forth with helpful information and I was able to make a choice. Well, ok, I made two choices because, as with art supplies, you can never have too much art equipment, right! More about my choices later…
I wrote this post in the hope that it might help some of you out there who are looking to try an easel, or perhaps purchase an additional one with different features. I’m no expert, since I’ve only used mine for a while, so I asked some ABA members from around the world to share with us what they use and why. Here is what they told me:
Helen Allen (UK)
Helen says that when it comes to easels “I must have tried almost everything by now! Table easels, lightweight travel easels, floor standing full size wooden easels (feet always got in the way), drawing boards elevated on a brick or block of wood." She sometimes uses a floor standing flip chart easel for large pieces so that she can get really close to the paper and says an architect’s drawing table is also very good.
However, Helen’s favourite 'easel' is a large, A2 drawing board resting on her thighs and leaning against a table or desk. To get close and have the board almost upright for detailed work, she simply moves the chair nearer the table; for washes, drafting and overviews, she does the opposite to lower the angle. Helen likes to have the main focus of her specimen at eye-level, to her left and very close to her board so that all she has to do when drawing and painting is move her head very gently one way or the other, keeping her eyes focused but moving.
Jackie Isard (UK)
Jackie says that the desktop easel shown below is by far the best investment she has ever made! Like many others, she suffers from back ache when painting on the flat. She says "it doesn't bode well to paint on the flat all the time as it can cause untold damage in the future. Occasionally, working flat is unavoidable, but I do advise everyone to take care of their posture when working. When you are young you think you're invincible, but it catches up with you later!"
Jackie finds this easel's best feature is that it can be positioned higher or lower, depending which part of the painting you want to work on. No unnecessary stretching! You can use it horizontally or vertically and set it to any angle you wish. She tapes her painting onto a backrest (board, watercolour block or even her large lightpad) for support since the easel has an open structure.
With the easel placed on a desk, Jackie can still reach her palette, cloth, brushes and paint box at the sides. There is a drawer which comes out of the right-hand side of the easel that is handy for storing or transporting things. She says many similar easels have the drawer coming out of the front or back but this just gets in the way or is inaccessible The easel collapses and clips together beautifully to make it compact for carrying. It is fairly weighty but not too heavy, and very sturdy. She has put some sticky foam pads on the base as it can slip a little on a very smooth surface.
Susan Hoy (Australia)
Susan’s response was that while she does sometimes use a desktop easel, she finds the space arrangement frustrating and doesn’t like that she is always sitting down. She prefers a standing H-frame easel; a preference that may come from originally painting with oils. Susan has two standing easels in her studio. Often one holds her reference drawings, colour matching swatches, etc., and the other is for painting (below right). She can keep her paints and water on a table to the side and seems better able to find good nearby positions for her plant specimens, keeping everything - head, painting and plant - on the same level, which she can’t do with a tabletop easel.
She likes that she can work on large pieces and adjust the easel to the right height and angle, and she can choose to sit or stand. This helps keep her chin down and eyes directly ahead, reducing neck issues. One of her easels is a hybrid that converts to a waist high table which is great for tracing or painting hard to reach places (below left). In her studio it also doubles as a dissection table.
One negative about her standing easels, Susan says, is "Water! You definitely know if your mix is too wet, gravity wins!” After a few years of painting this way, it is not a problem, but a beginner might have an issue.
Toni Dade (Portugal)
For larger paintings Toni prefers to use an adjustable A2 tabletop easel. She can keep it flat when she works on initial big washes and then place it at an angle when working in more detail. The easel has a ledge on which she can rest her iPad and palette.
Toni says: “It's really important for me to work on my painting from different angles. This enables me to see my work from different perspectives.” With this easel Toni is able move the painting around freely as she works. You can see from this photo that her setup allows her to keep everything she needs close at hand.
Christiane Fashek (US)
Christiane uses several different types of drawing surfaces in her studio:
~ 3’ x 4’ drafting table that adjusts from flat to 80° upright (at left).
~ 17” x 20” desktop board that adjusts from flat to 80° upright and has a surface that spins!
~ 12” x 17” plastic desktop drafting board that adjusts from flat to 20° upright. She uses this one flat when teaching, but says it isn’t great for the back and neck.
She says her drafting table is her current go-to since her architecture parallel rule straightedge is attached to it and her recent work has required the larger surface. When the board is set to upright she can work standing, however she must then keep her pencils and tools on a cart to the side and use a gooseneck lamp. Alternatively, when the board is set at an angle of 10-20° she can work sitting and can also attach lamps and a magnifier.
Emma van Klaveren (UK)
Emma says that posture is hugely important as she spends hours at her desk painting. The easel she uses keeps her in a good upright (seated) position and it has a sturdy ledge to rest her watercolour paper on. It has four levels of adjustment, is foldable and portable. The surface is translucent acrylic that is easy to wipe down. In Emma’s studio the easel sits in front of a window, and she says that on a sunny day she can almost trace images on the easel. She would love for the designer to tweak the design so it doubles up as a light box!
Annie Chen (Taiwan)
Annie spends a lot of time creating her botanical art at a desk, but she also uses large canvases to create artworks in acrylics. She has painted “lizards in the forest, angel fish in the river, and turtles in the sea, etc.”, and for those projects she has used her standing easel.
Annie says she didn’t have much experience choosing easels, and the reason she bought the one shown here was because it was height adjustable. She can choose to either sit or stand to paint. The easel’s very low price was also one of the reasons she chose it. However, after working on it she discovered that when her canvas was too large and heavy, the easel seemed compressed by the weight of the canvas and was almost unsteady. To work within this limitation, she uses a high chair to prop up the easel and prevent it from tilting. Even so, Annie says she has no plans to replace it and will probably continue to use it until it breaks. After all, she says, it has been with her for a long time and seeing it reminds her of her motivation and original intention to devote herself to creation.
Esmée Winkel (Netherlands)
For working on medium and large paintings Esmée says she mostly uses an angled table easel that was gifted to her years ago. Made of metal it is heavy and doesn't really move, it has a large surface area and a handy magnetic part, added by the previous owner, that can hold the acid free paper that covers part of the painting while working.
Jackie Rodríguez de Guzmán (Peru)
Jackie used to work flat on a desk, but when she began to have some discomfort in her neck she decided to try painting on an angle. First, she made an angled support by combining two acrylic exhibition stands (lower right in the photo). The size is 23 x 18cm and it is easy to carry when traveling. Next, her mother had a carpenter make her a wooden, tabletop drafting board with fixed angle adjustments and a ledge to hold her painting. Although she uses both, she finds that the acrylic support better fits the way she works as it allows her more freedom to move the painting as she is working.
So, after researching and getting advice, here is what I chose: two tabletop easels.
The first is a solid board style, similar to those used by Toni Dade and Jackie Rodríguez de Guzmán. Mine offers six fixed-angle adjustments, including flat. There is a small ‘ledge’ that the artwork rests on with room to keep reference photos and color swatches close. The height is not adjustable, but I have an adjustable chair that I can raise or lower so that I am at eye level with the area I am working on. The problem with this easel is that it is too large (20 x 25”). It takes up most of my table surface so my palette, water, brushes, specimens and reference materials have to sit elsewhere, making it awkward to reach everything. Because of this I’ve only used this easel once, but someday perhaps I will get a larger table and it will be perfect!
The second easel I bought is my favorite. Called a plein air or sketchbox style, it is the type that Jackie Isard described above. I love that it can accommodate large paintings, and that the angle is continuously adjustable from flat to vertical. The lower artwork support can be set below the desk level giving me access to the upper parts of the painting without having to reach or strain my neck. Because I turn my painting frequently to get a better angle for the brush, I keep the upper support quite high so I can freely rotate the painting without having to stop and adjust the easel. Compared to the board easel, this one has a smaller footprint on my table so there is more space available to keep painting and reference materials close.
Lately I’ve been thinking I might like to try a standing easel because, again, I don’t think you can have too much art equipment! It would be good for me to spend less time sitting but I am concerned that when standing my hand control might be less accurate, so I want one with a good height adjustment range so I could choose to stand or sit. It could be set up beside my drafting table where there would be plenty of room for paints, palette, brushes, water, plants, photos, tea, etc. With the comments from the artists above I now have a better idea of what to look for!
Many thanks to all the artists for their comments and insights. The old adage that there is something for everyone certainly holds true for artists and easels! I hope this post has offered you some valuable information and helped if you are trying to select an easel for your studio. If you already have an easel you love, or one you do not love, please post a comment below telling us about it!
Disclaimer: I have not provided brand names for the easels shown in this post as we do not endorse specific products, however, the types of easels shown are offered by several different manufacturers and should be available online or in art supply stores in most parts of the world.
To learn more about the artists who contributed to this post check out their Instagram pages where you can see some of their artwork and find links to their websites:
Helen Allen: @helenallenbotanicalartist
Jackie Isard: @jackieisard
Susan Hoy: @susan_f_hoy
Toni Dade: @tonimariald
Emma van Klaveren: @emmasbotanicals
Annie Chen: @anniebotanicalart
Esmée Winkel: @esmeewinkel
Jacqueline Rodríguez de Guzmán: @jrdgkids
Mary Crabtree: @marycrabtreebotanicalartist
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