The word easel comes from the German language and it means donkey. Easel is commonly used in German, Dutch and Danish languages. Easels are believed to be in use since ancient Egyptians.
An easel is a tool commonly used by artists while they are working or creating a piece of art. Easels are also used for displaying art pieces in museums and art galleries during exhibitions. Although most commonly used by artists, easels have their use as black board holders and picture frames on table tops etc. The best easels for a person will be those which best suit his needs.
Types Of Easels
There are two following main types of an easel.
Full-height Easel
Full-height easels are generally the best easels for artists. Such easels are used for pivoting their canvas or sketchbooks. These are the easels that are used to hold upright a black board or a projection sheet. The basic use of such an easel comes in when the size of the object to be held upright is big.
Short Easel
A short easel is generally used to be placed on a table top for the purpose of displaying a picture or a memento. Short easels are the best easels when it comes to decorating a house or for displaying smaller objects.
Easel Common Designs
Tripod Easels
The tripod easel is based on three legs with crossbars that make the structure more steady and reliable. The work plane on such an easel can be adjusted in height as per the requirements but the steadiness of the easel is not compromised in doing so.
H-Frame Easels
An H frame easel can be adjusted in terms of its verticality. Posts of the easel in this design are assembled parallel to each other in such a way that they look like an ‘H’.
Best Easels
The best easels can be chosen on the basis of which easel will best suit your needs. Another criterion of choosing the best easels for yourself could be the price that you pay for that easel. For some the best easels are those that give them ease at work and for other the best easels are those that cost them less and are the cheap easels.
Best easels in terms of their use can further depend on your need or profession. Some of the common uses of an easel are the following:
- Studio Easels: These easels are generally used by artists in their studios. Studio easels are the best easels for an artist because they enable them to hold their canvas or sketchbook while they work in their studio on an art piece. Studio easels have no need to be portable and hence they can come in sizes as big as 8 feet.
- Field Easels: These easels have a stricter emphasis on their portability and often have a handle attached with them for carrying around. Field easels usually come in the tripod design. These easels are the best easels for an architect or civil engineer.
- Display Easels: These easels come in all types and sizes and are usually used for displaying. Display easels are used to hoist paintings in an exhibition or art gallery and they are also used to uphold boards that can be bulletin boards or black/white boards during lectures etc. These easels are the best easels for artist exhibitions, teachers and lecturers etc.
Best easels in terms of their price would then take a look at whether you would want to pay more or less for an easel. Some people associate easel quality with high price which may not be true in most cases. Generally the best easels in terms of price will be the cheap easels. Some of the ways in which you can get cheap easels include:
- Wholesale easels: In the wholesale easels category the buyers tend to get heavy discounts and the price for one easel is less as compared to easels bought in other places.
- Second-hand easels: Second-hand or used easels can also be available at lower costs. Such easels can be used for display purposes as they aren’t being used functionally in such instances.
- Home-made easels: In order to get themselves cheap easels people often visit do-it-yourself stores and get the easel kits from there. These kits come with manuals on how to assemble the easel and as labor costs are saved the price for such easels is lesser then the ones you get from the market.
