Great for painting! My daughter loved hers when she was three!

My 3 year old uses this easel everyday. He mostly likes the dry erase board. We just bought him a pack of dry erase markers and he is a drawing fool! The easel is very sturdy, easy to clean, and the storage tray is capable of holding plenty of markers, papers, magnetic letters etc. Each side of the easel also has a shallow, individual tray to hold writing utensils. The only slightly negative thing I have to say is the paper "clip" isn't very reliable. The paper slips out quite easily while drawing/painting. It does work nicely for displaying though!