Art Studio/art room

Can you even believe it?  This is what my art room looks like?  How could I?  I grew up OCD and so was my mom.  I didn't like being OCD and prayed that I would not be any more.  Did I have to go the opposite direction?  Oh well.  Enjoying myself more in my life and learning to let go.  My mom died five months ago, and again, having health problems...my husband too...and my daughter too.  My laundry looks the same.  So, every day, I set up a schedule, see if anything will interrupt it and go from there.  I finished my art room, and only have five more loads of laundry.  After my mom died, my husband and I travelled to see his mom and mother in law from his first wife, then we had to get caught up here with so many errands and then we took one week for vacation.  So things added up.  Now, after a week on my back from pulling my back out (last year the same thing happened mmm)   I am up and vacuuming, cleaning frig, drawers in kitchen, and laundry.  My art room will always be there, but people can see it right when they come in the house,  oh well!

How did I house clean this room.  I brought everything in the middle, heaps and all:)

I went through each box slowly, had another empty box to the side, what I did not want or need, I put in the empty box.  I made an area in the room for sewing, an area for beads, I made a couple of baskets for office supplies, and for a week I bit off a bit that I COULD CHEW and did it.  Much of it got done in two days, and piddly little stuff I did later.  Under my desk that is in front of the white chair, I had a huge basket under there filled with every sort of goody from papers to small art pieces, acrylic paints, plastic easter eggs, new supplies that I bought at Hobby Lobby by Claudine Hellmuth and I put the paints in the paint box, put the easter eggs in my three dimensional box, small art pieces went on the window sills so I could see them, Claudine Hellmuth paints on my desk to try out, papers went into a huge box because I love collecting all sorts of papers and cutouts for collage.

I will post up-dated pictures of how everything looks.

Art Studio table

Nice and clean. I have to clean my room all of the time. This is not the way it looks today. Maybe tomorrow? nah!

Cloth Paper Magazine

Check out the latest Cloth Paper Studios Magazine. It gives a small history of various artists, their works and about their studios. Many artists have begun by the kitchen or diningroom table, so have patience in that small spaces can turn out to larger places eventually.

Many of the studios artists have in magazines are huge and beyond my belief that I could have one that large but also there are some that are in humble size. This magazine has the dimensions of the rooms and this issue has small sized studios. The studios may not have the same structure or sized windows as my room.

My room has two small windos facing the shady side of the house. It has two huge doorways; one leadin to he kitchen, the other leading to the dining room. I have tried to close the one doorway with bookshelves but it made the room too closed in. I have acquired many supplies and ephemera. Collage and mixed media is such a great art but tough because you acquire all sorts of stuff from fabrics, paints, three dimensional objects, boxes, frames, canvases, stamps, sewing machine, beads, papers, tools and on and on so then new space needs to be created creatively.

I go through this every couple of months with changing, switching and finding better ways to display and work. The couple of months is here already. So get creative with me and send me your pictures of your work space and we can brain storm ideas.

Art Studio or Art Room

I have seen many peoples art studios or "art rooms" in their homes. I think it is one of my most favorite things to do and many artists to look at one anothers studios. There is something about looking at different supplies, mediums, paints, brushes, pencils, others art work, the way others organize their art supplies.

I have to clean and re-organize my room often because I am using everything, pulling out stencils, books, different brushes and never get to put them away. The other night I got up from the couch about 10:00 with inspiration. I painted, collaged, used bees wax and my brushes are still soaking in water. Have you ever noticed the terrible smell from brushes soaking in water for weeks? Terrible and not good for the brushes. I think every artist does it at one time or another. My children, when they see my brushes are in water for long periods of time, correct me and remind me what I taught them as an art teacher. Ooops, I feel ashamed!:) Little bits of papers and glitter on the rug and when I am working, I can't find a tool.

The other night, I wanted to poke holes, couldn't find my hole punch, so I used an awl with a hammer. I got a great hole that I wanted, but could I find the awl later, when I wanted to do it again. I try to put back my supplies as soon as I am done with them, but that gets tedious also, but where did that awl go? I still have not found it. Maybe I laid it down in an open drawer.

I do this time and time again with ink. I take the cover off, use the ink and then can't find where I put the cover. My surfaces are full with papers, and works that I am completing, that I end up working out of an opened drawer from the bureau I am working on. Then I move over to the next low bureau, open my ink drawer and begin working there, matching what color inks I want to use. By the way, I use black ink, white ink and distress ink the most. Then I enjoy spraying the vintage inks that look like coffee. They are pretty light in color depending what you are spraying it on. It is walnut ink.

I have tried many ways of organizing my stamps. I would love to have them out at all times, but I do not have anymore room, so I need to keep them in a drawer, with the picture of each stamp showing, and I have them placed in themes-Valentines,hearts, Flowers, Christmas, alphabet stamps, butterfly stamps, and my favorite "dragonflies", women's heads...I do have favorite stamps like the ones with writing on them.

I have purchased cheap picture photo albums and have put the clear stamps inside the pages, but that didn't work as well as I liked because they also become fat and take up alot of room.

My paints were put away in a bottom section of a white tiered cabinet. but I couldn't see them, and now that I picked up a shelving unit on top of the bureau, I have all of the paints on the shelves and I have been using them ever since. The problem, The shelves are a bit narrow, just a bit, and the bottles of paint fall off and I have to pick them up all of the time. So one way works better than another, but not perfect. I think this will be a passion of mine, to organize my art studio every few weeks. I will get it one of these days.

My room is about 10'x12", but I have so much furniture and just don't have the heart to get rid of my window seat or my electric fireplace which gives me heat in the winter. So, I have the two bureaus in an L shape with my chair on wheels, and I can go from bureau to bureau.

I have my blow dryer plugged in at all times to dry my work. The next thing is to plug my sewing machine in so that I can easily sew my work and not have it be inconvenient. I also would love my beads to be out. Unless I get a larger studio, I don't think that is going to happen.

I feel a bit closed in, but I am working on my artwork at least three times a week where before, when my studio was another small sitting room, I just did not use the room. Now I am.