My Tiny Messy Studio

I like to see the artists' studios. I think that an artist's studio gives some insight into their character as well as how they go about painting or doing whatever.  I've seen studios that are spotless and so neatly organized that you might think it's a display in some art store.  And I've seen studios that are so messy that I have to wonder how any of them actually make art.  I lean more towards the latter.

My studio space is small and when I decide I want to change media to do some other project, I have to "put away" my current studio and set up the one for that medium.  So I began to get canvas bags and organizing containers that contain the materials I need for whatever I might be working on.  For example, I have a canvas bag where I keep all of my watercolor supplies and one for all of my pastel supplies.  It's a good thing that I don't work with mixed media or I'd really be out of luck.  Anyway, I thought I'd share some photos of my space so you can perhaps get some insight into me.

Here is how it looks when standing in the entrance to the room.  

This view is from the closet behind my desk which is full of junk.  I have little room between my desk and the closet so trying to position my seat just right takes some energy. 

As you can see I've just set up a small canvas board and stuck it onto an large old palette which is acting as a backing.  My table easel does allow me to have short canvas like this because the top slides down only so far.  I am planning a still life of--what else--pears.  Three, I think, resting on a plain table or perhaps on a table cloth--still learning how to make fabric look good.

Okay.  So this is where I work.  Note, too, that there is no space, really, to set up a still life so I mostly do them from photos, my memory or just my imagination.

Anyway it would be cool to see your studio so if you like send a comment with a link to your blog or photo gallery.

Cleaning Pastels

I have a bunch of pastels that I hadn't used in some years and because I didn't take care of them, many are covered in dust from other pastels and each looks dead and gray.  I read somewhere that you can clean your pastels by filling a cup or some container with rice, inserting the pastels into the rice and giving it a few shakes (with a lid on it, so I learned).  That worked pretty good, but it is a little inconvenient because you have to clean your pastels a few at a time, and my pastels tend to always be dirty.

So, my mind racing, I thought of a way of making a kind of tumbler with a motor that would allow for more rice and many more pastels.  But making something like this is a little daunting for me.  Then I remembered that about 20 or so years ago while vacationing with my family at Cape May, I found in some small shop near the beach a Lortone Model 3A rock tumbler, which they still sell.  One of my many interests is rock collecting and lapidary.  I've done neither, but finding the tumbler sparked my imagination and so I had to have it.

Back to the present.  I figured I'd try using the tumbler by filling it with the rice and placing in it a few pastels.  I let it go for a few minutes and it worked.  The harder pastels cleaned well, but the softer pastels not so much.  Part of the problem, I think, was that I was using the old rice I was using when cleaning them in a container. 

Oil Painting

I've had this desire lately to go back to painting in oils.  At the moment I have no oil paints, linseed oil or turpentine, but I do have a number of stretched canvases I purchased a while back.  But still, I like to think about painting in oils, and there is something about them that I just love.  It's partly because it is one of the most respected and historic mediums.  But also I love the smell of oil paints and linseed oil and the feel of brushing paint onto canvas.  It's buttery and rich.  The colors are beautiful and the fact that it dries slowly means that you can work it and rework it.  I've done nothing with acrylics, but they seem as though they'd be similar in feel to oils.  I do have a bunch of tubes of acrylic paint that I bought some years back when I was going to experiment with them.

I suppose one of the drawbacks of acrylics is that it dries really fast.  Well, this is a good thing, too, because you don't have to wait for the painting to dry enough in order to continue.  But I guess that I'd really need to plan the painting really well before starting.  I don't plan very well, actually, and I'd rather just let the images come to me as I paint, which is one of the reasons I really like abstract expressionism.  Of course I'd have some idea about what I might paint, and I'd even do a sketch or two, but other than that I am at the mercy of the medium and, of course, my genius that, due to poor health and my own egotistical overestimation of my brilliance, has suffered a great deal.

Anyway, when I start making lots of money I will be buying the best oils I can find (probably mail order or at a place called Pat Catan's which has a good selection of art supplies).  Usually I shop online at Cheap Joe's and Jerry's Artarama, and sometimes at Dick Blick Art Materials, but they can be a little pricey.

So on I think and dream and look forward to the day I can smear oil paints onto canvas.

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My Art is For Sale

I know that one day I will be a world famous artist up there with the likes of Piccasso, Matisse and Pollock.  Therefore I've decided to put my art up for sale now while I'm still alive.

1.  Three Pears        $ 1,200,000.00

2.  Four Sketches      $    62,348.79

3.  Doodle of a Pear   $   800,000.11

4.  Tree at Sunset     $13,000,000.00

Note: All sales final.  No refunds.  No haggling. 

Three Pears

Here are more pears.  This time there are three.  This is not yet finished.  I am doing this painting with oil pastel using a pointillism technique.  Again I am showing two different photos because I really suck at photography, so perhaps this will give you a feel for how it might actually look.

Miscellaneous Sketches

Here are some little sketches and doodles that I have recently drawn.

Start of a simple landscape

More pears

Flower study

Abstract doodling

Colored Pencil: A Pear Doodle

Here is one a colored pencil sketch that I did about a week or so ago.  For some reason I am into drawing and painting pears.  I like to eat pears, but I'm not a fanatic.  It's just a subject I use to experiment with value and color.