U.S. Art Supply Newport Large Adjustable Wood Table Sketchbox Easel, Paint Palette, Premium Beechwood – Portable Wooden Artist Desktop Case – Store Art Paint, Markers, Sketch Pad – Drawing Painting

★★★☆☆ This review is for the incredulous shopper. I read many of the one/low star reviews, and yep, they were telling the truth. I decided to buy this anyway hoping I could fix the problems. I did.Firstly, if you're like me, then you'll want to use this for painting AND drawing. The folks giving it High-star reviews would never tilt the box, put any kind of pressure on the easel board, or have to (gasp) worry about a carriage bolt in the middle of the drawing area.I would have to worry though. I know. I'm trash. But, hey. You might be trash too. Don't you worry. We can beat this together.The carriage bolt on the freaking drawing surface is freaking removable! There. First issue solved. I really wanted to know that before I bought it. Having removed the bolt, the extendable arm can no longer be tightened down. But I've had no issue just letting gravity pull it down. Now there's a hole left where the bolt is and for that I have another thin piece of wood (artist board) I rest on the surface.Once I got the easel, I came across another issue with the extension arm: it's not flush with the drawing surface. Meaning if you press towards the top of a large canvas it won't be against the wood and will wiggle. To solve this issue you'll need to clasp a ruler or some, slim piece of material to "fatten up" the arm. My solution involved 0.5" spring clips and a metal ruler. The clips are cheap, easily removed, and provided the perfect padding distance to get everything flush.I also used spring clips to deal with the fact that the easel's drawing surface can't stay up. It took 1" spring clips and put them behind each of the hinge links (The metal oval part that slides). This stopped the easel from falling backwards.One more issue arises if you're using a large surface on the easel: the top of the easel shakes because it's not supported. I simply added a piece of PVC pipe that sits in the drawer area and pokes into the lid. This could also be accomplished with a dowel rod. If I had them, I would have spring clipped two paint stir-sticks. If you're not doing something tiny with a very delicate touch you'll need to support the top of the lid.The last problem is the fact that the wooden patitions in the drawer only freaking go halfway up. There's no functional reason for this either xDGrabbing the handle and lifting the easel will send all your stuff crashing around. For this I used the Amazon box that the easel was shipped in. I cut up the box and made layers of cardboard the size of the drawer. I stacked all the layers and then put in the wooden dividers. Boom! They're flush with the top of the drawer. Now for the next step, filling up the hollow lid. For the lid I took more cardboard and made a box that would fit perfectly inside the edges. I had to cut holes where the extension arm attached, but it snugly filled up the lid. Now I can shake the box around and all the stuffs stays in the section I placed it.Really, this is a garbage product. But I can't find anything as cheap that serves the same function. There are minimal things that they could change to make this so much better, but I was able to easily accomplish the fix. If you're willing to jimmy-rig this easel, I say it's freaking worth it. If you want to use all the features in a reasonable way straight out of the box, I recommend buying something better/more expensive.

★★★★★ Love this easel. Bought it for my 10 year old. It is very roomy inside with plenty space for brushes, paint and even her canvas paper pad. It brings it's own palate with its own storage place on back of the lid to the inside of the easel. It will adjust and accommodate various size canvases for painting. Has handle so it carries like a briefcase. my daughter uses over counter, table or even on floor. Very easy to put everything away inside to store away. I highly recommend this product.

★★☆☆☆ I had hoped to use the easel to rest my canvas on, but the minute you put on the canvas, the support slowly gives way until it's flat on the table. The nuts were tightened as far as they could go, but just a very light canvas was too much for it. Maybe mine was defective, but I couldn't see how it could be improved.