Artist easel plans?

[Sean Rainaldi]

Hi,

Any recommendations for artist easel (painting on canvas) plans? I'm looking to build a heavy duty indoor, non portable easel, which will hold small (down to a foot square) and large canvases up to maybe 4 feet by 6 feet in size (maybe even larger than that).

[Glen Butler]

The best I could do is sent you some pictures and dimensions of mine.

[Paul Atkins]

I'd go to the art store or the college art dept. and see what there is, and how they are built. I'm sure you could take a few pictures too. No use re-inventing the wheel. Ask an artist that uses one what they would do differently.

[Dan Forman]

If I was going to make one that large, I'd try to incorporate some ideas from this one:

http://www.studioeasel.com/index.html (http://www.studioeasel.com/index.html)

It has a counterweight to make raising and lowering the canvas easier.

Also take a look at easels at ASW :

http://www.aswexpress.com/discount-art-supplies/online/2864/art-supplies/4

Good luck,

Dan

[Carroll Courtney]

Norm has one on his website ----Carroll http://www.newyankee.com/getproduct.php?601

[Glen Butler]

If I was going to make one that large, I'd try to incorporate some ideas from this one:

http://www.studioeasel.com/index.html (http://www.studioeasel.com/index.html)

It has a counterweight to make raising and lowering the canvas easier.

Also take a look at easels at ASW :

http://www.aswexpress.com/discount-art-supplies/online/2864/art-supplies/4

Good luck,

Dan

Seeing this one makes me not want to use mine anymore. How would you do the counterweight?

[Hank Knight]

Sean,

I built a studio easel for my daughter a while back. I started by copying pictures of easels from the internet. We picked a basic style, she added her ideas and together we came up with a plan. Here is the result:

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?referrerid=5960&t=40421

It is fully adjustable and holds the smallest canvases up to about 7 footers. She's been using it for several years now and is very happy with it. Easel designs are pretty straight forward. Decide what you want and design your own.

Hank

[Sean Rainaldi]

Thanks so much for the suggestions all!

[Dan Forman]

Seeing this one makes me not want to use mine anymore. How would you do the counterweight?

I'm not sure, I never made one, but the "about" page shows a pretty good view from an angle that shows most of the parts that move. I like some of the features that Hank built into his too, especially the folding tray. Beautiful job Hank!

Dan

[Sean Rainaldi]

Just some added info, I found these plans on line after doing a lot of looking: http://www.artisteaselplans.com/arteasel/ It appears his Cadmium Easel plans for 35 bucks might be worth it.

I have an email into the guy to see if his plans include both rotation and tilt with the up and down counterweight, have not heard back yet. Has anyone here built the Cadmium Easel? Do the plans include canvas rotation and tilt?

I guess the cadillac of all easels is the hughes easel http://www.hugheseasels.com/ it's counter weighted with tilt, but for over two thousand bucks, it appears one can easily make pretty much the same thing for a couple hundred bucks tops.

[Dan Forman]

That looks pretty much like the one that I linked to earlier. I've never heard of an easel that rotates the work for you, but that's easily done, a canvas is pretty light.

If you get the plans, let us know how they are. Unless you are a good designer, it would probably be worth $35 to get the plans. Hopefully they are clear and concise.

One thing I might do would be to add a couple of upright canvsas supports closer to the center upright, so that there is outside support if the canvas is not wide enough to reach the existing ones.

Dan

[Sean Rainaldi]

Thanks will do, once I get the plans I'll let you know. Incendentally the plans I'm buying include tilt and a counterweight.

Here is an interesting easel I found on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoZWxqCMRvI the canvas rotates, yet I don't know what use rotation would have unless maybe if I was handicapped.