Art Post Art Furniture and Apparatuses
Hello everyone!
How has your art been going? Do anything cool lately?
I have a quick housekeeping note to share. Since the art posts are not like a journal, and are meant to be more informational, they will no longer be numbered. From now on, we will simply call them “Art Posts.” Okay, onto the post!
Do you have a difficult time finding a comfortable place to draw? Oh, how I have been there!
When you want to learn how to draw, you can find lots of information on drawing, but nobody talks about the physical infrastructure you need. I am still in the process of finding what works for me and growing my art furniture and apparatus supply.
In the present, I am pretty happy working on the couch with a pillow in my lap. It does not put the paper pad at a perfect non-distorting angle before my eyes, so I do have to slouch over the paper pad a little, but it’s a great simple comfortable set-up.
A pillow or a lap desk is essential when drawing or using a laptop on your lap. I have looked for angled pillows, but did not find anything good.
I regret throwing out a hard plastic breakfast tray/lap desk that had a broad partition that could be snapped into different angled positions, and ribbed partitions in the front to prevent your drawing tools from rolling away, and giving you a place to rest your wrist. I bought a plastic breakfast tray from Ikea, but it is not the same– that hard plastic tray from the nineties was a beast.
The worst position I have worked in was sitting on the floor with the tablet/paper pad in my lap. My neck would cramp up, and it felt like I was squishing my organs.
I went to a nearby art store hoping to find some kind of thing that would hold the paper at an angle. But it was intimidating because there were mostly easels. That looked too serious!
If you want to work at a desk, you’ll need something to angle the paper. I was looking for a tabletop easel. Or a ”table easel.” Or a “portable drafting table.” Or a “desktop easel.”
Sometimes these essential but particular items are hard to find. Sometimes it’s hard to find what they are even called! The names might not be consistent, and you have to search for different things before finding what things are called. Then you meet an older professional and they’re like, “Oh yeah, we call that a flipper!” But in the next town over, nobody calls it a flipper...
I needed a tabletop easel so badly, but for years it was hard to find one online or in the store. Quality was a concern. It was also hard to find one big enough. Remember, you need space around your piece of paper to rest your hand! Finally, Michael’s art brand, Artists’s Loft, came out with a big one!
I got one, but life got crazy, and I still have not used it.
Some other tabletop easels I have seen do not have a flat back, so you need to use them with a clipboard or other hard surface, but you can use them with a tablet. I have also seen metal tablet stands, but I don’t recommend them because they might mess with the internals of your device.
Good infrastructure is important. Like in any field, artists need a unique set-up that allows them to function and thrive.
None of this goes into mental, emotional, or other environmental necessities an artist could have, but they exist too. They could be minimal, baseline needs.
In the future, I would love to have a sturdy drafting table with an ergonomic chair or stool. But I worry that I’ll get nervous feeling like I have to draw when I’m sitting at it-- That it will be too much pressure. Who knows? Maybe not! Maybe so!
For now, sitting on the couch with a pillow works great. My home life is dynamic so this allows me to be flexible. Compared to when I had to draw on the floor, it’s paradise!
Happy drawing!
Asya