I’d post a photo of our easel, except I don’t have any of Maia drawing at it recently. It sits, ignored for most of the week, in our living room. I’m not sure why. We bought it for Christmas when Maia was almost a year and a half and I was sure it would get constant use. It’s certainly not the first time I’ve been wrong about a purchase for her.
To be fair, she did draw at it almost daily early on, even several times a day. Is she bored with it now? I’ve kept it stocked with a roll of paper and lots of crayons on one side and chalk and an eraser for the chalkboard side. More recently I’ve started keeping markers at the easel as well.
When other children come over, they usually draw on it. And sometimes Maia draws when the other kids do. Toys are more exciting when your friends want to play with them, right?
I think it’s time to move things around. My plan is to move the easel into another room and put different drawing materials on it, such as colored pencils. Or, bring it into the studio, and put painting materials on it. We’ve kept painting as a studio activity, and since the easel hasn’t been in the studio, she hasn’t painted on it yet.
I’ll let you know if the change in location and art materials proves inspirational…
I’d love to hear from all of you. Do you have an easel? Does it get used?
Despite this, I still think that an easel is great, partly because it’s so obviously dedicated to art while a table has a million different uses. And partly because toddlers, especially, seem to work well standing up. But I don’t know that you need one. Ours obviously doesn’t get much use at the moment, but it’s an adjustable easel, so will grow with Maia, and perhaps in another year or two, it might get constant use. Who knows? I do think that a table works just as well for drawing and painting. And if you want a vertical surface, you can tape a piece of paper onto the wall or the fridge.
But, just for fun, here some easels I’ve found around the web:
This is the one we have. It’s a Melissa & Doug Deluxe Standing Easel. I think one of the best features (besides the low price) is that it’s adjustable.
Here’s a natural wood easel with plastic bins that looks sturdy and useful.
This Alex Super Rolling Art Center looks cool and has storage space for art supplies as well.
Here’s a super modern Eco Tots easel in case your decor calls for something sleek.
And, since this is just for fun, here’s a mini easel available on Etsy. Maybe your doll needs an easel?
threesneakybugs said
Our easel doesn’t get used as much as I’d like. I think it’s an adjustment to paint up in front of you vs. down on a table. But this is just a guess. One side has a white board which probably gets the most use. The other side is a chalk board. When Seth has a friend over they like to each have a side. Definitely ups the fun factor.
Sarah said
Yeah…our easel doesn’t get much use either. Our white board side definitely gets more use too but he likes the chalkboard sometimes. I’m gonna have to go search around but I took a fostering creativity class for young children last year and I remember reading something about why not to use easels. I’ll see what I find.
melissa s. said
Hi – I love your blog and wanted to say hi and chime in on this topic! We have an easel with a chalkboard on one side and a white board on the other. I do the same as you and leave out plenty of supplies, but they (4-year-old and 2-year-old), still prefer their craft table (they just end up bringing the supplies over to the table!) One thing they do like: I’ve been putting a glue stick out with little items that they can glue onto the paper. They do prefer to do that at the easel, not sure why!
Thanks for the great interviews and ideas here! I really enjoy your blog!
The Artful Parent said
I’ll have to try a glue stick and some collage items. I wouldn’t have thought of that in conjunction with a vertical surface, but maybe it’ll work for us too.
That’s interesting that your easels don’t get much use either. I still wonder why…
Dana Lee said
Our easel got constant use when it was brand new, and then it sort of just sat there ignored, like when the newness wears off a toy. I decided to just put it away in our art closet for a while. Months went by, then one of the kids saw it and wanted to bring it out. It was like brand new again. Now I keep it put away and only bring it out when we plan to do art on it. We do the same thing at our preschool. On the days it’s set up ready to go with paper and paint, all the kids want to use it – some could probably stand there and paint all day.
Sara said
I’m actually looking to buy an easel for my kids. I plan on putting it outside. We live in South Carolina so it’s warm enough that the kids can paint outside. I thought it might get more use out there. Less distractions maybe?
Thanks for the easel links. I’m going to check those out.
-Sara
OTJenH said
Funny you ask about easels… I am just starting a blog of my own and one of my first posts was about why I love easels for kids. I am a mom and a pediatric occupational therapist, and I’m always singing the praises of easels for their developmental (in addition to artistic) benefits. They are a GREAT tool for helping kids develop their grasp. We have a really basic easel at home, which I relocate in different areas of the house and backyard according to our mood. And we have a table-top easel on my son’s “desk” which we mostly use for chalk. We also love to use the chalkboard side of both easels with chalk and a paintbrush with water (or a squirt bottle) to make things “disappear.”
I’ll try to post a picture of our table-top easel on my brand new blog along with a link for where I got it (I think it was Stacks and Stacks, but I’ll double check). I would also like to link to your blog from mine — I have been so very inspired by what I’ve read here so far!
r8ermom said
Good question. I was just wondering whether I’d made a mistake in buying my son an easel. Not only in buying an easel, but a desktop one. It’s from Land of Nod online and I bought it during the holidays when it was on sale and had free shipping. I couldn’t resist. It has a whiteboard and chalkboard.
My son loves to paint on it and will often ask to paint. He seems to prefer painting on the easel for now and will paint on it longer than on a table or the floor, which we sometimes do. No use yet out of the whiteboard/chalkboard though I’ve got the materials for it, just haven’t had a chance to use them since he always wants to paint.
But now I’m wondering whether I should have gotten a standing easel. My thinking back then was that I wanted an easel that I could easily put away and wouldn’t take up much room in the closet. The other was that I could sit my son at the kitchen table in his booster chair and prevent him from going around the house with paint in hands. But is this hampering his creativity? Or now, as you ask, is an easel even necessary? I do like the idea of painting outside and have been thinking of ways to set up the easel in our backyard.
Shawn said
All of our “toys” go unused after a while. All. of. them. The easel so far is probably the one toy that hasn’t gotten tiresome for my twin girls, 2. It doesn’t get used as much now than when we bought it in January but it does get used. Perhaps because I lead them in art on it almost daily. We have the Step 2 plastic version that’s very easy to clean. I love the Melissa and Doug easel you pictured here. But, for now, this one really does well for them. Lately, I’ve been giving them paint brushes with water and they use that all over the easel. It’s fun on the chalkboard side, but on the white board, too, when it has marks they can make disappear.
We do a lot of window art with window markers, too … on the windows, though. But, it’s another standing up art project.
amanda said
I have been thinking about how to “spice up” our easel lately too. My son’s only 17 months, so all I leave out are chunky crayons for the paper side, and big chalk for the chalkboard side. Sometimes he paints on the chalkboard side with water, but we haven’t painted on the easel yet because it’s in our office and is not a very good place to make a mess… so we paint at the kitchen table.
I have been thinking about how to make an art area in the basement, which would be a place i wouldn’t care about mess – but we don’t spend a lot of time down there so I don’t want all of the creativity to be down there… Hmm I don’t know.
I think maybe as he gets older it will get more use. For now he has just as much fun drawing on the wall as on the easel.. =/
Rachel said
how interesting… our easel doesn’t get much use at all either. last wk, we decided to put it away for a while and try it again later. i’m thinking when it gets warmer, we might let it “live” outside. i’m wondering if it would get more use outside?
we also placed magnets on our’s magnetic/white board side for the boys to play with… which got a little more interest than doing art.
daisyeyes said
we have the melissa and doug easel and it was used much when we first got it, like most have written…although i have moved it into a space where i spend a lot of time and the kids do seem to flock to it much more than they did. my little girl loves to “draw” much more than my son, so hopefully it will get more use as she grows.
Stacie.Make.Do. said
Our easel sees almost daily use. The most popular activity is to “paint” with water on the chalkboard using a chunky brush or a sponge brush.
Easels are also great as felt or flannel boards. We have a big piece of felt and a box of smaller felt shapes that can be combined to make pictures. Pellon also sticks to felt or flannel and can be put thru your printer!
Hay said
I like the natural wood easel with the plastic bins. That would be so handy for storing stuff, and so easily accessable. Hmmm, might need to revamp our little art centre! Thanks
Kristen said
A change of location and mixing up the materials usually does it at our house! In the summer we move ours outside. Ours is also plastic and indestructible. I garbage picked it when my now 13 year ols was a toddler!
jo said
good post, I have been umming and ahhing about getting my son an easel but was worried that he wouldn’t use it, I was thinking of using it for outdoor art since we don’t really have anywhere in the house to leave it set up.
Barbara said
We used to have an easel in my preschool room (4 yr.-olds.) All the classrooms did (and most still do.) But I coveted the floorspace for other things. And I really didn’t like limiting the painting to just 2 kids at a time. So we got rid of ours and now we paint indoors on our table and sometimes both tables. Outside we clothespin paper to our chainlink fence. I like this better because we can put up really big paper and when the kids paint they use big strokes that cross their midline. We can put up as much paper as there are kids wanting to paint. Also we can paint long murals as a community project. Now, obviously, home is different than preschool, but reflection and experimentation will solve most problems at either one.
The Artful Parent said
Wow! So many good ideas. Thank you everybody!
pajara pinta said
I arrived here through a post you had on children books some time ago… I have a blog on children illustration you might like…
Go visit!
http://www.caracarmina.blogspot.c
If you love children illustrations as much as I do you would enjoy it!
I’ll visit again for sure!
ciao!
pajara pinta said
sorry is http://www.caracarmina.blogspot.com
allison said
We actually just received the Melissa & Doug one at Christmas for my 3 yr. old son, and now 21 mth. old daughter. My daughter is very into coloring (chalk, crayons and markers), and will pick up chalk and color on her own everyday. My son used to be more interested in coloring when he was younger, but now is more involved in imaginative play/role playing, or his race cars. However, they both LOVE to paint on it…..I just have to work to contain the mess (we don’t have a good spot in our house now) so we don’t do it everyday. However I’d like to incorporate it more often into our daily routine.
I really love this particular easel.
Mom and Kiddo said
We have an easel from Ikea, which was really inexpensive and works quite well. It is in out living room as we have limited space in out apartment but it gets a lot of use — almost daily. I like to put new things out to keep things interesting. My only regret is that I cannot have both sides exposed at once so my son could choose between two different projects.
Denise said
We have that m&d easel…the boys don’t use it much at all, so it goes into the basement when I tire of it in the dining room. We enjoy painting at the table, and drawing on our lap blackboards much better. More comfy, easier to work with.
coastalgirl said
We have the melissa and doug easel as well and my daughter loves it. She paints/draws on it several times a week and is always asking to paint on it. In fact, I can’t seem to keep enough paper in stock. The only complaint I have about that particular easel, is the chalkboard. It didn’t work well at all, so we re-painted it with two coats of chalkboard paint and now it works beautifully. I think it’s a great easel for the price. In kids’ craft stores I’ve seen it for $79, but we paid $39 on Amazon and got everything included (clips, paints, chalk, markers, etc).
Jody said
I read your post last week and all of the great comments. It got me thinking about our easel and how we have seasons where it is used a lot and others when it is not. We are currently in a lull for easel activity. I found a recipe for making paint. So, today we made paint together and my daughter loved using it. Having her make the paint with me gave her the desire to use the paint when it was done. It was great fun for both of us. I blogged about it if you want to follow my link.
Jen said
We have the Alex Super Rolling Art Center you posted and so far I’m pleased with it. My son is only 18 months old so he can only reach the lower third of the drawing space. He loves the chalkboard side the most. And I love the storage shelves. I hope he continues to use it as he grows. The only complaint I have is that the blue cup holders stick out quite a bit. I wish they were more narrow. It reduces his reach a little because he has to stand so far back….but, as he gets taller it will be less of an issue. And I read another comment about the poor quality of the chalkboard on a Melissa & Doug easel…ours too, isn’t great. It works for an 18 month old, but I may try the chalkboard paint she mentioned. I’m definitely happy that we have an easel. My son asks for crayons or chalk at the easel almost every day at least once…it serves as a little art reminder for him. (I can’t yet leave drawing utensils out at the easel because we’re still learning that they’re not for eating and not for the wall, windows, etc.)
andrea said
I have been having a terrible time choosing an easel. What I want is the Melissa and Doug easel that you pictured except MAGNETIC, on both sides if possible. The Alex easel that looks like the Melissa and Doug one is magnetic on both sides, but is over $100, so I keep winding up back at the drawing board so to speak.
I wanted to be able to also use the easel for doing activities with magnetic letters….like montessori-style moveable alphabet activities with it. The M&D tabletop easel for $30 IS apparently magnetic, but the stand up easels are so much better for getting them to do the large strokes in the proper direction for future letter formation. If anyone has seen what I’m looking for, for a reasonable price, let me know!
Karre said
Hi
We just got the M and D easel in Dec for my son’s 3rd birthday. We live in a studio apt and from the time he was about a year we would tape paper to the washer and dryers in the laundry room so he could go to town painting anything he wanted (we did this once a day almost). (literally he painted the walls, himself, the floor the sink, the washers and dryers, everything! …. and then i’d clean everything off with my trusty sponge.)
The easel has been pretty popular so far. He loves the dry erase board (the chalkboard isn’t usable but we’ll try that chalkboard paint idea. thanks!) and when we first got it he loved painting on it but has been more into doing “car tracks” on the floor from “first art”. My 13 month daughter loves painting and drawing with it too and often uses it several times a day.
My son was diagnosed with autism when he was 2.5 and has pretty severe fine motor delays and dyspraxia. I’m a little bit concerned about his drawing development for this reason. (i own susan strikers book and have read it a couple times since my son was 1 year.) He is starting to do more symbolic and pretend play and he identifies “things” during drawing and makes up stories about his drawings. However i don’t see many circles or other shapes in his drawings. I have friends who have taught their 4 yr old with autism to write and draw by moving her hand for her to teach her the circle and other shapes. I’m pretty sure my son would not allow me to do this and i think it is pretty much in stark opposition to susan striker’s ideals. (i’ve been careful not to influence or draw on or for my kiddo at all.) I guess what i am wondering is whether or not any of you have experience with this. Is it normal for kids to “get bored” with the variety of shapes in scribbling and start making mostly little zig zags….?? did you child’s scribbles evolve alot…? i’m hoping he’l just break out drawing mandalas of some sort one of these days!
thanks !