U.S. Art Supply 11" x 17" Artist Sketch Tote Board - Lightweight Hardboard Drawing Board with Handle, Clip & Rubber Band for Art, Sketching, Travel, Studio

I was so afraid to buy this without not being able to see it in person since I've never taken a class before and only understood in theory that this is what you need to water color on top of. I was exceedingly happy with the quality of the board and the clip. Really well constructed, excellent quality. I haven't used it yet with water color paper, water, paints etc. but this is the standard type of board (masonite) for water coloring on so I presume it will perform just fine. (If it doesn't I'll update my post later once I've actually used it but just by looking at it, it has a super smooth surface, lies perfectly flat.) I wasn't sure what the thick red rubber band was for that you see in the photo. I almost threw it away, thought it was part of the packaging material but I realize now its for keeping your paper mounted to the board. I was just planning on taping my paper to the board with regular old painter's masking tape. It was a nice bonus that I wasn't expecting. I have this resting on a desk top easel on my craft desk so in combination, its a fantastic set up for me. The easel I own is called "ANGELINA Compact Table Top Easel" and distributed by "Martin Universal Design, Inc." which I bought here on Amazon as well. I did a lot of research to find just the right easel on a budget and that easel turned out to be the best easel ever. Its adjustable so you can determine the angle you want to work at, its the perfect size to fit this board on, and it has little rubber tips on the bottom of the 3 legs so the legs don't slip and slide on your table top, and the ledge that the board fits on is very sturdy and the perfect width for this board. I highly recommend getting both and use them together if you plan on doing a lot of water coloring at a craft table. At first I thought it would have been nicer to have a smaller board which I could not find, but it turned out to be a huge bonus that it was this size because it sits so perfectly on my easel. I have chronic neck pain so I wanted a very ergonomic set up for water coloring, and I'm super excited to finally have everything I need now to do that. If you are a newbie like me, I recommend that you don't buy the water color paper by popular "craft" companies, look at what artists use and go for the best since the craft brands are over priced for their quality. I did a lot of research and it seems that everyone is in agreement that "Arches" is the best watercolor paper. I've read that Fabriano is "good." That is what I'm going to invest in next. (You can buy both of these brands here on Amazon.) Also, the best brand of water color pencil that I've discovered so far is Caran d'ache (Supracolor). (Since I don't draw I will only be coloring in stamped images which are usually fairly small in scale so I like the precision that you can get with a pencil). There are some light fastness issues with some of the lighter colors that I've read about, but I'm just a card maker so if some of the colors fade in a few years, I'm fine with that. I almost bought the Faber Castell Albrecht Durer brand because its so highly rated here and in a ton of pins online in the crafting community. Caran d'ache (Swiss made) seems to be mostly known by artists rather than crafters so it wasn't something that I found until I did quite a bit of looking around, but was very happy I discovered the Caran d'ache Supracolor before I made my final decision. (I also bought the clear/colorless blender pencil set of 2 which they sell to use with my Prismacolor wax based colored pencils.) Apparantly Caran d'ache Illuminance colored pencils are the best rated for lightfastness, would love to own some of those one day too, but they are not for water coloring.) I could only afford the 30 pencil set but love them and got them here on Amazon as well. (They also now sell a "museum" fine artist version, the top of the line and most expensive...would love to own one of the introductory sets.) For brushes, I read that Escoda from Spain produces the very best brushes and each one can be as expensive as $100 each for the finest brush tips (what I have paid for in the past for make up brushes from top of the line brands). From being a hobby make up artist I knew very well the importance of the quality of the brush and pigments are for laying down color so I wanted a really good brush. Since I'm just getting started, I bought the Escoda Prado 1462 Watercolor & Acrylic Tame Synthetic Sable Paint Brush Round; Size 4, it was only $10 here on Amazon. Its a great size if you are using rubber stamps as illustrations for coloring. I used to quilt and after years of making quilts there is one huge take away I learned which I think applies to water coloring as well. As with quilting, you need to have the right combination of fabric, batting, needle and thread to make a great quilt. If you are going to invest your time and energy into making something by hand, its very satisfying to make something that looks good for all the time and effort you put into it so I knew it would be important to get the right combination of paper, pigments and brushes to get the best results. I'm sure if you are a professional, you could probably make really great art with lesser quality materials, its not just the tools, technique is very important too but I just didn't want to waste money on inferior products only to buy quality in the end to get the kind of results I want to achieve. I think in total, the brush, board, easel and water color pencils added up to $100 which I think is a great price for this much quality. I could have easily spent that much at Michaels for inferior products. I'm expecting to pay about $30 for a pad of paper from one of the brands I mentioned above. Hope all this info helps, it took me 3 months of casual online research to discover all this information (and many more months of saving to invest in these items) so I hope it helps others who are crafters/card makers/mixed media artists that are new to water coloring.

The size is right the drawing area is well calculated the rubber band is a must and it has it the clip is good and strong and easy to use the board is very sturdy as it should be the handle is placed in a good place with plenty of room left for the artwork. Good handy board for those times when you are using smaller paper and you don't want to lag or use the standard size board. Great companion board to your main standard size one.

I have ordered three of these at different times and the first two are the same size and the third one is bigger, although they all say 11" x 17" on all of them, which is no big deal and kind of nice. Two of them are for gifts I am sending out with other supplies because I am teaching some drawing skills and recommended they needed sturdy drawing boards that provide a smooth hard surface. These are great and affordable. I plan to get more since I like the size a lot and have numerous projects going at once where I tape paper to the board when painting because it gives a nice edge. I am using the first one I ordered for graphite pencils and colored pencil drawings, but have not opened the other two. I do plan to recommend these to my students unless they can find something less expensive, but I think these are good quality and none have been warped.

My son loves this sketch board it's easy to carry around and well-made to draw and sketch on for his artistic needs.

Seems pretty nice. The clip is strong and sturdy. And the rubber band seems durable. Although I probably won’t use it either of them. I typically take my paper and tape it down on the board with even edges so that my artwork has a nice clean white boarder. The board itself seems durable enough. Mine arrived with a slight dent in the one corner. Which I don’t mind but it makes me think the board itself may be easily damaged if you’re rough with it. But the edges don’t really matter as long as the surface is smooth for drawing. I ordered this to use for smaller artwork. I have a larger drawing board that I’ve used for about 8 years but I just needed something smaller. I like the smaller size for smaller work so that I won’t have so much board to awkwardly try to hold or reach across. I’ll be using this on my lap and on a table. I’d definitely recommend this though. It is a good price and good quality.

This was the closest six to what I wanted. It works as expected and as advertised. It’s sturdy and should last a long time. I really appreciate the built in handle.

It was exactly as advertised and what I was looking for.

I've been wanting something like this for a while now. I've been very happy with this. The clip holds very securely and the board is very smooth. I kind of wish the clip was moveable rather than attached so I could place it more conveniently when I'm doing the top parts of a painting. In a perfect world, it would have two detachable clips so I could attach one to the side as well. Maybe a later version of this will do that. I wish Amazon allowed half star ratings. The clip thing didn't seem worth deducting a whole star but I would have rated it 4.5 for it if it were an option.