My Studio Makeover

My "studio" aka painting area is a hallway at the bottom of the stairs in the cellar. A few weeks ago I posted my before picture of this spot. It's a 6 x 8 foot space that is a pathway to the laundry area. All of the things I was using for storage were leftovers from when we moved into this house 5 years ago. My painting table was a metal garage shelving unit with various crates and closet organizer shelves stacked on top of it. It wasn't working really well for me. So I decided to study what was working and what wasn't working and to fix it up as a reward for working really hard for several months on my Izannah Walker Workshop.

What was working:

• Having a dedicated spot for painting that is separate from sewing.
• Keeping items like paint, colored pencils, gesso, etc at hand near the table.
• Plastic drawer units to organize pencils, markers, etc.
  

What was not working:

• The tower of shelving units on top took up the working space on the table.
• I was storing things in this area (quarts of paint) that did not need to be stored here.
• I needed to make some decisions about what I was going to focus on art wise. You can't do everything (although I like to think I can).
• Things were getting lost at the back of the shelves in the metal storage unit
• I needed to throw some things away (packrat alert!)
  

My $75 plan was:

• Hang two shelves above the shelving unit/painting table and get rid of the tower of make-do shelf units.
  
• Clean off the metal shelving unit and only store there what I actually use.
  
• Hang a shelf on the right wall to act as a painting easel for larger works.
• Skirt the shelving unit
• Get some boxes or baskets or bins to act kind of like "drawers" on the metal shelving unit. So if things were in the back of the unit I could get to them by pulling the bins out a bit.

Here's before and after together...

What I actually did:

• Cleaned off the metal shelving unit and only stored there what I actually use.
• Hung two shelves above the shelving unit/painting table and got rid of the tower of make-do shelf units.
• Hung a shelf on the right wall to act as a painting easel for larger works.

Mission Creep:

Then came a moment of decision.

After I had hung the shelves I realized how much I hated that metal painting table. It did not inspire, truly. I was constantly catching my clothing and hands on the metal edges of it. It was wobbly, and I wasn't even sure it was going to survive moving back to the spot it had been. So I decided to replace it. This went beyond my $75 plan, but imagine how happy I was to go to Lowe's and see they had butcher block rolling carts at a deep clearance price of $79. The red cart below was also on clearance and I bought it for $35. So all told I spent about $280, which includes the three carts I purchased and the shelving and hardware. All the other storage items were ones I had on hand. And I found lots of rolls of tape! It is so much better and brighter!

My easel area below:
a shelf on the wall as an easel,
a rolling veggie bin as a painting cart.

It is so much more workable

I am a happy girl!

So now to get working!
Notice the closed door
in the picture below
at the end of the hallway?

That's my sewing area.
My mom told me
not to show that
on the internet.



At 47 do I need to obey my mama still?

Rising from a Chair

Rising from a Chair

Move toward the edge of the chair. Place the left foot a little in front of the right with the weight upon it, and rise gently as if a string attached to your chest was lifting you little by little up to the ceiling.

The above paragraph came from the book 300 Things a Bright Girl Can Do. The writing in this 1903 book is hilarious. I like to look through these old books through Google Books to find old sewing information and old craft ideas. Another book that's interesting to look through is The Girls' Own Toy Maker. Homemade Toys for Boys & Girls from 1915 presents how to make toys from wood and cardboard.

Thinking Small

www.maidatoday.com

I've been thinking small lately. I've been talking about being a beginner a lot in the Izannah Walker Workshop, because some of the members are brand new to sculpting. As artists we often want to skip over the beginnings and get to the big finish. Well, truth be told, it's not just artists, that's a people thing. We enjoy the BIG finish, but don't often see that the BIG Finish is not possible without the small beginning. The thumbnail sketch is what gives birth to the epic painting. A drawing on a napkin becomes a dream house. A chance phrase overheard in a coffee shop becomes the title of a writer's greatest work. These are seeds, small beginnings. They are acorns which grow into mighty oaks.

There's a verse in the Bible (Zechariah 4:10) that says, "Does anyone dare despise this day of small beginnings?" Seth Godin says that Small is the New Big. I started something small today called Maida Today, which stands for "Making Antique Inspired Dolls & Accessories."

Worth Repeating

     Some things are worth thinking about again and even repeating aloud. I am not naturally an optimist, I have to work at choosing it. It is gray and dreary and February and I'm not feeling optimistic today. February does not have the promise that March does, with occasional rainy days that let you know that Spring is around the corner. So I have to take the time to remind myself in the form of gaudy Gerbera daisies.

"Sin is behovable (unavoidable)
but all shall be well
and all shall be well
and all manner of thing shall be well."

Julian of Norwich

Doll Earectomy

The following is one of the video clips I've made for the Izannah Walker Workshop. Nothing like doll surgery to keep it real.

Passion & Fear & Balance

Sunny Bates on Linchpins, Passion and Fear from Seth Godin on Vimeo.

Giveaway Alert and Happy Valentines Day

Joee is so funny. Read her post.

and just for fun....a movie montage on love...

Tools Matter

I was talking with an artist recently and the subject of technique came up. There are artists who believe that only expression matters, and technique does not. Only the process matters, and the end product is what it is. When I was in art school 20+ years ago one of the professors described an artist saying, "He probably uses a triple zero brush." This was not a compliment. The fact that this artist took months to make a painting was something being derided. Somehow I internalized something from that conversation without knowing it, thinking that small brushes were instruments of evil. So I've spent years trying to paint things with big brushes that are impossible to paint with big brushes. It's a kind of artistic Sisyphean challenge.

Doll making has unveiled all this for me. Because the truth of the matter is, the kind of lines I want to make can't be made with a large brush. Using the right tool for the right job is important.

Helen Pringle Doll on Ebay

A doll making friend of mine is downsizing her doll collection to make room for life's other ventures. This is a very beautiful Helen Pringle doll. These don't come up very often on Ebay - in fact I've seen more Izannah Walker dolls come up on Ebay than Helen Pringle dolls.

1930's Graffiti Tabletop

Featured on Anonymous Works

and available at Stephen S. Powers

Advantage of Being Disorderly

"One of the advantages
of being disorderly
is that one is constantly
making exciting discoveries."

A. A. Milne

Cleaning House (Studio)

One of the reasons I have postponed cleaning my painting area is that it requires making some decisions. Am I going to use the mica dust/flakes that I've had for 3 years and used once when I made a snow-woman creation? What about the wooden 70's canisters I was going to use for some mixed media project? And the old lamp base that doesn't work?

At the heart of these questions is "Where do I want to go with my art?" This led to thinking about what kind of creations are/will be timeless. There's a lot going on in the art world that makes me think "Cool!" and then I wonder if it will be sitting next to an 80's country geese collection at a garage sale sometime in the future. It's not that trends are bad, but you can get lost in them. I do think there is value in really studying the historic traditions in art and folk art. And there's also value in paying attention to what's going on around you.

As I clean my work area I am asking myself "Which items will I use to make a creation that is timeless and uniquely Dixie?"

The Joy of Learning Curves

Learning something new can bring frustrations but it can also bring a lot of joy. I love learning new things. Right now I'm in a learning curve of beginning to do video instruction for my Izannah Walker Workshop Class. It is one thing to put a doll pattern out there in a 2D way, and it is a whole new world to try to show the making of the doll. I bought some software yesterday which will hopefully help me to be able to edit the clips. Here is one that I made - and believe me I see (and hear) all the problems. I have black countertops (not my choice!) which sucks the light out of the room. You can hear my oldest guy with autism clapping in the background and the sound of the heater and maybe the dog. It's a learning curve, and will be a fun one to learn how to edit and add better lighting, etc. And I know I will get better at it!

 Izannah Walker Workshop

Izannah Walker Workshop Tutorials

Today I took all the individual pages of tutorials from the Izannah Walker Workshop and combined them into one document. All together, it totals 81 pages of detailed tutorials. So now my job is to go back and see how I can edit it so it is smaller.