setting up an artist studio

Saturday Studio Time: Margaret Sloan

| maggiebird

I’ve been asking my artist friends to participate in the Saturday Studio Time project, so I thought I’d better post my own thoughts about my personal studio too. Studios are so personal and private; I’m eternally grateful to the artists who have agreed to shed their natural inclination to shun publicity and offer a glimpse of their working spaces.

Artist studio
This is where I paint and draw. On the floor is a painter’s drop cloth. The lights are clamped to the bathroom door; someday I’ll get a light stand when I find the perfect thing. The easel belonged to the sister of a dear friend; she passed away, and he had no use for it, so he loaned it to me. It means so much to me to work on it.

What does your studio mean to you?
I’ve never before had a dedicated room for my studio; I’ve always worked in the living room of whatever small space I lived in. But with a recent move, I now have a room to myself, and it’s exhilarating and terrifying. Exhilarating because it makes me feel like a “real” artist. Terrifying because of the responsibility and expectations that are attached to having a dedicated space. I try to be very businesslike in the studio, as well as very creative.

Having a private space means I can allow myself  to work on projects that might be dumb. I can make mistakes. I don’t have to worry about anyone seeing them and commenting or judging. Work doesn’t have to be public before it’s ready. That’s incredibly freeing. Sometimes my mind feels like it’s spooling out into the universe and netting more ideas than I can possibly consume in a day, a week, or a lifetime. Every morning I get out of bed brimming with ideas, projects, and plans for the day.

Morning commute
This is my morning walk down a path to my studio

Where is your studio?
It’s at the bottom of the house, but since the house is on a hill, my window looks into trees.  It’s like being in a tree house, which about the most romantic thing in the world to me.

In the morning I leave the living space of the house and walk down a little path through cedars and sugar pines to get to the studio door under the house.  During that short walk, I make a transition from being at home to being at work. I’m able to set my intentions for the day during that brief time in the outdoors.

During the daylight hours I work really hard, but so far I don’t like being in the studio after darkness falls. It’s partly because we live in the country and the night is very dark. I often catastrophize about mountain lions hiding in the shadowy recesses under the deck, ready to leap out and eat me. I’m professional about it though. I stay and finish my work, because it’s got to be done. But at the end of my day, I often call my husband (his office is at the top of the house) and ask him to come walk me “home.”

What does your studio look like?
I have all sorts of plans to create a beautiful and fabulous space, but so far, working has taken precedence over decorating. Stuff is where it needs to be in order to get the job done. Sometimes I wonder why I am not the kind of person who absolutely requires a beautiful space in which to work; I think that I live in my head so much that I don’t often notice my surroundings. Except for the outdoors. I notice that.

For the most part, my studio is pretty messy, especially when I’m working on a project. Between projects I clean it a bit: collect the dirty coffee mugs and popcorn bowls, recycle scrap paper and printouts of projects, collect sketches and trial paintings and take them to the flat file, wipe up the drips of paint, sweep the floor.  I like working in a clean space. I just have trouble keeping the space clean.

Rolling kitchen cart with two drop-leaves.
Rolling kitchen-cart with two drop-leaves.

What’s the coolest, most helpful thing in your studio?
Last Christmas, my husband bought me a rolling kitchen-cart thingy at the local thrift shop. I love it. It’s the perfect height, so it has made my painting life less painful (before, I hunched over a folding tv-tray table). I can fit multiple palettes on the top of it, store my brushes and painting supplies in it, and roll it where I need it to be. I highly recommend something like it.

Also, I recently bought a light box for use in illustration. It makes transferring sketch ideas so much easier than tracing them on the window.

Light box
Light box with sketches of a current personal project

 

Studio tip?
My most useful tip, and one that I should heed more often is this one rule: No Facebook in the studio. I can waste way too much time looking at cute puppies and kitties or stressing over politics. I should be in my studio to work, not gander at the internets.

How to build a cheap and easy shadow box for still life painting

| maggiebird

This is the first post in a what I hope will be a regular series called Saturday Studio Time, about the trickery and design of setting up an art studio, whether it’s in a living room, a barn, or a fabulous heated room filled with glowing north light (I wish!). I intend to interview other artists as well as write about my own studio.

Shadow box. I didn't have enough materials for the bottom, and the top is really two pieces of mat board taped to the shelf above.
Shadow box.
I didn’t have enough materials for the bottom, and the top is really two pieces of mat board taped to the shelf above.

I realized that my hour-a-day still-life studies for the 30-in-30 painting challenge need a better set up than a south facing window (although the window set up does give me some terrific back lighting).

A shadow box was needed, a place where I could light the subject independently of the light source of the room. But I don’t have a lot of room in my studio, or a lot of time and patience to build something fancy.

But I did have an empty shelf—at eye level when I stand—on my Ivar bookshelves from Ikea (the ugliest bookshelves in the world, but so, so useful to an artist). And I had a black mat board left over from long ago graphic design classes, when we used to mount and display our work. (Does anybody do that kind of handwork anymore? Or do all teachers and clients merely view digital offerings?)

And I had that modern miracle, duct tape.

A cheap clamp light from OSH is the light source. The bulb is a little strong for this set up; I'm going to replace it with a daylight bulb of a smaller wattage. See the duct tape holding the whole thing together?
A cheap clamp light from OSH is the light source. The bulb is a little strong for this set up; I’m going to replace it with a daylight bulb of a smaller wattage.
See the duct tape holding the whole thing together? Hooray for duct tape!

I cut the mat board to fit in the Ivar shelve space and taped together a box. It’s not the fanciest shadow box in the world, certainly not like this one, or even this one, and I still am not sure how to shield the front of the box from ambient light, but for a quick and dirty solution, it works fairly well.

Photo of a shell in shadow box. The fact that it's a jury-rigged box doesn't mean it doesn't work pretty well for a fast and dirty solution.
Photo of a shell in shadow box. The fact that it’s a jury-rigged box doesn’t mean it doesn’t work pretty well. It’s all about the illusion.

Back to painting!

Creating an artist studio

| maggiebird
Easel is up!
Easel is up! Now if I can just find the painting I had been working on before we moved.

Moving brings great changes, and for the first time in my life I have a dedicated studio space. Boxes are being unpacked, computer hooked up, printer tested, easel placed. Yippee!

Now comes the excitement (and expense) of tricking it out so it will be a place where I can work happily, efficiently, and comfortably. I’ve been looking for ideas for wall color, lighting, setup. The internet is a useful place sometimes, and a dangerous (to my budget) at other times.

I would love to read any and all the American Artists Studios series by Northlight, but unfortunately, the budget doesn’t allow for it. Well, maybe…

A quick internet search brings up a treasure book of studio porn.

The problem with looking at these home sites is that they want to be stylish, and so they show only stylish studios. Mostly white walls, elegant spaces. But is that always best for studio space?

Painter and teacher Will Kemp goes a little deeper into the subject of wall color on his blog:

Sadie Valeri, classical realist painter, teacher and owner of the popular Sadie Valeri Atelier generously shared her teaching studio set up on her website:

Dear readers, any suggestions from your own studios?