Soho Urban Artist Pochade Box for Plein-Aire Painting French Easel, Lightweight, Portable & Adjustable, Mahogany Finish

Fantastic surprise when it arrived two weeks earlier than the date it was scheduled to arrive. Functional and solid Pochade with everything as advertised. It’s not a master carpenters construction but then it wasn’t £600.00+ so you can’t expect that. Great to use indoors too if space is tight. Highly recommend *****

I do like this box. I purchased this box to use at home, primarily for its mobility. I can sit it on my lap, or the tripod. It’s well thought out in its design. Some complain because it doesn’t tighten well. Yes it takes some strength to tighten it so that your canvas stays in place. Once it’s tight it’s great. It’s lightweight for easy travel, yet well built for the artist who wants to have all your tools readily available at your fingertips. I do have a large easel, but it’s not mobile enough. This works great. The max height allowable is a 17” canvas board. Rightly so as it’s not designed for the heavy large canvases. It can hold quite a few 9x12 or less canvas birds in its stowaway compartment. Long handle brushes fit in it. I prefer glass pallets, so I purchased a 9x12 New Wave pallet, which fits on top of the wooden pull-out pallet. I plan on adhering the glass pallet to it for a more stable ride. It’s a well designed, good looking, versatile unit.

So the engineering. What you're getting here is the whole package , easel attachment / pochade box and canvas holder. I included a picture of a pile of wood I disrespected trying.to make one of these myself because "its only a box" , ha. My only two design critiques would be that Id rather have the tripod mount adjustable or center instead of back and I wish less wood blocked the pallet area (but its actually better in that regard than many others) The attaching brush panel? Flush with the box. Also attached magnetically into its cubby (you can see the tiny circular magnet on one photo I took) Wngineering wise the highlight has to be the pochade box that can adjust to accept so many sizes. The value? Just unbeatable. If you're looking to get into plein air , stop right now . You found it. I easily spent twice as much on parts just attempting to bud my own. Sturdiness I gave 3 stars because I can tell some kind of soft wood or artificial wood was just dolled up to look nice (not that they lie by the way) , of course weight is a huge factor so without doing aluminum trades have to be made. I do feel just holding and handling it that although they didnt build it or design it cheaply , if it were to drop or scrape against something it would get damaged. Its...6 pounds I think? Well within reason when you consider its a portable studio. I guess a final "wish list" critique for soho on how to improve might be to allow us to separate the supply storage and canvas storage area from the easel / palette holding area , maybe the next iteration could be aluminum in order to facilitate that? But yeh. I spent over a month looking at every pochade / easel box on the market , agonizing over mt choices and even trying to build one and.this sleak beauty was right under my.nose the whole time , check all the boxes.

This box has it all! I LOVE it! One of the best parts versus others like these is that it will hold small canvases in place. Others only hold bigger sizes and will not adjust to hold 5x7 etc. I don’t write many reviews so trust me when I say this is worth every penny. Great price and just a great product all around for any level artist. I suggest watching the video for it. It shows all the hidden gems.

Sadly I will be returning this. There was a hole in the center of the palette, one side of which had been filled with wood putting or sosmething like that, nut you could still see the hole if you turned the palette over. There wer also dings for about 2 inches on one of hte edges of the bo wihcv were quite visible when open -- not that either of these wax a showstopper BUT given these -- I wax not surprised when the easel functionality was not functional -- after major effort and time tightening two of the knobs, to hold the easel in position -- the slightest touch of a brush would lay it flat on its back. Also There is a fairly large piece of wood with a groove in one side -- I've no idea where it goes and there are no instructions. This is a very shoddy product.

The box has a spot for everything. The hardware is very terrible. You have to constantly adjust it and tighten the screws to keep everything in place because the hardware is cheap. Then after about four times of painting, plein air with it, the screws came out of the hinges and ripped out of the wood. The hinges broke because they are tiny. The magnets were a good idea but too weak. I wish I’d saved my money and bought a better quality box. The box is heavy and clunky as well. The spot for the tripod isn’t in a good spot either. It always felt off balance and needed constant adjusting. It finally ripped out of the wood - again because of cheap hardware. Instead of getting to focus on painting I was having to stop adjust and it was just so frustrating. It’s a piece of junk - save your money and get a quality box