After many months of brainstorming, countless drawings, experiments, building and testing numerous prototypes, we have developed a couple of new wall-mounted artist easel designs that we are excited to show off.

While toiling away in my woodworking shop, building wall easels over the last several years, I’ve had a lot of time to think about alternate designs and features that I wanted to explore. Most importantly, I had decided that I wanted to make a wall easel design that could be constructed at much taller dimensions and still remain very straight and rigid. By its nature, all wood expands and contracts with changes in air temperature, humidity and its own internal forces. On smaller easels, allowances for a little bowing or warping can be accommodated for. For painters who regularly work on canvases over six feet tall, I wanted a different approach…

The Inspire Wall Easel

Inspire Wall Easel, Model 266 (Non-Telescoping)

Two masts, 66 inch tall x 66 inch wide

Where the masts of my original wall easel have a long vertical slot, the mast on the Inspire Wall Easel is constructed as a long box with a dovetail key running up the center. The canvas holders travel up and down along this key, where they can be clamped firmly in place as the knob is tightened. This design ensures that the canvas holders remain perfectly square to the masts, without unwanted play or wiggle.

The new masts come in two types — simple or telescoping. At a glance, the telescoping masts look identical to the simple mast. However, closer inspection shows that a telescoping mast has a sliding sub mast that can be moved up or down. This means that once a canvas has been secured between two canvas holders, the entire painting surface can be lifted, without having to individually re-adjust each holder. This feature allows painters to comfortably reach all areas of their canvas, easily repositioning their work at any time during a painting session.

The Elevate Wall Easel

For many painters, the simple mast type will do all that they require. But for painters who frequently find themselves needing a step stool to reach the top portions of their canvases, the telescoping feature is a really nice upgrade.

Okay sure, these new mast designs will allow for much larger easels. But what about smaller easels? While there’s a lot of demand for painters who like to work big, we do get asked to build wall easels of more modest dimensions. For artists who work on smaller canvases, we are introducing a new 40 inch tall, single mast wall easel. (shown in the photos below.) Of course, we will continue to take orders for easels of whatever custom dimensions are required.

The wall rails have also been improved. Each rail is now comprised of two parts; a larger board that is fastened to the wall and a smaller beveled track that is screwed onto the first board. The easel masts have corresponding cleats that fit over the beveled tracks. This French cleat design allows the masts to be placed anywhere along the rails. When the teardrop shaped knob at the bottom of each mast is tightened, the mast is locked firmly in place. Loosening the knob again allows a mast to be slid left and right, or to be taken down altogether.

The new products are to be added to the Paper Bird Studio & Design shop in coming weeks. Oh yeah, there’s also a few new accessories and options on the way, but I’ll save those for another post. Thanks for reading!