What a Job!

Yesterday was a very busy day.  The mess in my little kitchen studio was getting out of hand. I couldn’t take it any longer. So, I headed to Wal-Mart, spent $20.00 on a storage bin with drawers, came home, and cleaned up my art area.

It’s still a bit of a mess to have in our kitchen, but it’s definitely an improvement over how it looked before.

I have my oil paints in the top drawer, brushes in another, and miscellaneous painting supplies in the bottom. There’s room behind my easel to store large containers such as thinner and oils.

This isn’t going to be an ideal set-up, I know. It will be a bit inconvenient to get my palette and paints out, but I’m hoping it will make me more aware of my actions as I begin and end each painting session. Mostly, of course, I want to prevent the unsightly mess I had before. No, I didn’t take any before pictures, and even if I had, I would never have posted them here.

It would be nice to have a dedicated art studio. If I could, I’d have a huge room with lots of north light. It would be warm — but not too warm. I would have several different easels, a place to store canvas panels, and a place to keep finished paintings as they were drying. I would have a table with all my paints and brushes close at hand. I’d have a sink for clean-up. And since I’ve become so accustomed to painting in my kitchen, I’d probably want a small stove and refrigerator for snacking!

While I’m daydreaming about my ideal art studio, I’ll go ahead and dream that it’s off in a small wooded area with a little stream nearby. I’d no doubt have easels sitting outside, too, so I could step out to do plein air painting without a lot of fuss and bother.

It would be nice, but it’s not going to happen any time soon, I know. So, for now, I’ve learned to be quite comfortable in my kitchen studio. It’s not perfect, but neither is my art.

A lot of life is learning to make-do with what we’ve got. I’m thankful for my little corner of the kitchen.

What would your ideal art studio look like?