Dream Easel
 

I spend many long hours at my easel and after going through three (expensive) easel mistakes, I have found an easel that really works - and am happy to recommend it! I've found that this easel has every feature I could ever want. Check out the Hughes Easels at:

http://www.hugheseasels.com/

Don Andrews invented and builds these wonderful easels and he has been very good to work with.

No doubt about it, Karin, Hughes does appear to be the final word in easels.

For those of us with more modest budgets I can recommend easels by Best at:

http://www.richesonart.com/

I use the Santa Fe II, and while you must exert yourself a little, it is very versatile! (Maybe this will someday become my "B" easel, and I'll be able to afford a Hughes. Just think of the cost in our pathetic Canadian dollars!)

David,

I own both the Best Santa Fe III and the Mabef studio crank easels, and I must say that the Mabef is superior in every way. Not only does it crank up and down much more smoothly than the Best's winch system, but the Mabef grips the canvas better and moves up and down as a single gripped unit. The Best design relies upon the weight of the sliding mast to grip the canvas. This often causes problems when I lower the canvas because sometimes the mast will temporarily catch instead of sliding down, allowing pressure to build up between the winch and the mast. When the pressure releases, the mast and canvass drop abruptly and destabilize. I have even had my canvass bounce free of the top grip and bump me in the forehead - wet paint and all!

I have tried out Best's version of the studio crank easel and found it to be inferior to the Mabef. Best's crank easel has a wobbly mechanism that is also geared too slow to be practical.

The good news is that the Mabef lists between $500-600, so it's in the same price range as the Best Santa Fe line.