Studio easel

Claim 1

An artist's easel, comprising: a base, a vertical upright frame, and a canvas tray holder, said base and said frame supporting said canvas tray holder in equilibrium, a rectangular horizontal base frame having casters, said upright frame being mounted on said rectangular horizontal base frame, a base support shelf positioned between said horizontal base frame members with a plurality of holes at the back ends of said horizontal base frame members for vertical or inclined positioning of said upright frame, a cross brace and a rear brace member having thereon a pair of inclined segments supporting said upright segments and connected at pivot points to said upright segments, the opposite ends of said inclined segments connected to holes on said horizontal base frame members, respectively, and secured by a pair of quick release pins, a crossbar fixed between and near the lower ends of said upright segments, a pair of parallel spaced apart vertical angle bars connected at mid-center of said crossbar and near the top ends of said upright segments, a pair of brace members being connected to said uprright segments, respectively, and converging upwardly to the top ends of said vertical angle bars, respectively, and then terminating together in a triangular fashion, a continuous endless V-belt stretched between a pair of pulleys and positioned vertically between the center and plane of said vertical angle bars, a top one of said pulleys being connected by brackets to each outer side of said vertical angle bars, respectively, and a lower one of said pulleys being mounted in a U-bracket, a fastening member from the base of said U-bracket extending through a hole in a lower bracket mounted at midpoint of said crossbar and secured by an adjustable member for adjusting tension on said V-belt, a rectangular slidable block positioned in said channel formed by said vertical angle bars and connected to the front length of said V-belt, and circumferentially opposite this point is an attached counterbalanced weight, an angle bracket having vertical and horizontal portions, said vertical portion being attached to the back side of said rectangular slidable block, said horizontal portion being attached to the center and bottom side of a canvas tray saddle block, a canvas tray holder resting on the top side of said canvas tray saddle block, an adjustable fastening member extending forward through centers of said vertical portion of said angle bracket and said rectangular slidable block and the vertical plane of said canvas tray holder, respectively, for braking and clamping action between surface of said canvas tray holder against the surfaces of said upright segments, and between the surface of said rectangular slidable block and against the inside channel surfaces formed by said angle bars, a top canvas holder connected to a top slidable block positioned in said channel formed by said vertical angle bars, said top canvas holder being connected to said top slidable block by a releasable fastening member extending through the center of said top slidable block and forward through the center of said top canvas holder, clamping said top canvas holder to said vertical angle bars at any desired height, whereby said canvas tray holder will remain in equilibrium at all times, regardless of the weight applied thereon, up to a reasonable limit, without having to add to said fixed counterbalanced weight, and whereby said canvas tray holder can easily be moved to different working heights during the day, giving the artist the opportunity to move from standing to sitting positions at will and without awkward time-consuming mechanical heights adjustments.