This is where I work at home if I'm not painting outdoors. I'll give you a tour and explain why I created this environment. You'll notice my walls are dark and I'm working with lights. My studio is a 12 1/2 x 8 1/2 ft. There is a window on the south west side of the room which has a lot of light come through making it impossible to control color and glare. The only way to have consistency and light control is to create this black wall scenario on three sides of the room with overhead lights at a 30 degree angle to the canvas to avoid shadows from me as well.
You'll notice my palette is glass painted in grey under the glass for color and value control. Glass is easy to clean and this piece is quite large 24 1/2 x 19 3/4 inches and sits on top of an old computer desk. You can see I pulled a drawer out to show where I keep my oil paints.
Below the drawer I have additional shelves to store other oil paint supplies. The white tower you see is an air filter. Additional portable plastic cabinets to store my acrylic, watercolor and gouache supplies as well as other miscellaneous items. The easel is a new H easel to allow me to work on bigger pieces. A layout is sitting on the easel as well for a commission project to be done...but more about that in another Blog.
Here's a closer look at my palette along with the other portable shelving that I used for storage.
Here is the south west side of the room where the light would normally come in but is blocked buy the black fabric. You can see a monitor screen on top of the taboret with again more tools as well as additional brushes, laptop, and various miscellaneous items necessary to work with.
This is the opposite side of the room where I got rid of the closet doors and put in my adjustable art table. More shelving and storage. The cabinet on the right side has my air brush and portable compressor with paints for that tool.
My lighting system angled at 30 degrees using 500 lumens with one slightly higher. Wax paper to cut down glare on the middle one.
This is where I store completed paintings that may or may not be for sale. Above that there is another shelf (not shown) with more paintings and extra canvas. This is another room where I do layouts, computer research and work on my business in marketing etc.
As you can see I'm working on a commission for a client which we will talk about in another blog. You can see a lot of layouts are done in pencil before the finished product is done.
This is next to my other computer where I'm working on this hockey commission. This easel is supporting a 24x36 inch layout which will be the size of the final painting. It's handy to have the split from studio to computer room so that I can focus on what is a priority.
That just about wraps it up for the studio at home and how I organize myself. Many students interested in art want answers to what and how to organize themselves. I welcome all questions and criticisms as well.
My Gallery of completed paintings are hanging throughout the house in various rooms and especially in the family room on railings that are a natural surface to keep art without having to hang it. Hope this was useful to you and we'll see you in our next post soon.
Any comments or questions about the studio set up are welcome. I have several students that wonder what the best studio or lighting set-up is ideal. Space is another concern many artists and students have when they don't have a dedicated space. The comment section below is a great space to post your solutions or questions and I hope to make this an interactive blog!