Archives For studio

The night has come, the kids are (hopefully) tucked quietly in bed…time to plop on my corner of the comfy couch, prop my feet up and relax. The lights are dim, dessert in hand, I look up towards the TV, grateful for a moment’s peace. My eyes drift left.

To the left of our wall-hung TV, is the open doorway to the art room, my art desk and wall of materials directly in view. The walls are a sage-y green, dirtied over the years, and there is a lot of stuff in there…I mean a lot. I try to organize, simplify, de-clutter…but where, oh where, am I to put all my art supplies, framed paintings, good frames and boards just waiting to be used? Not to mention the (albeit cute) Pottery Barn alphabet cards the previous owners GLUED to the wall (hear my displeasure due to scraping off glue atop a ladder) as a high wall border. This everyday sight got under my New Year’s skin.

Art room before the big painting party

Art room before the big painting party

As the year ended and 2013 approached, with my normally busy schedule on the back burner, I took the opportunity to update my art room. My 7-year-old and I trucked off to Lowe’s with a couple of oyster shells to choose just the right shade of light gray. As my mother will tell you, I’m not one for testing paint colors first, or for bringing home options. Nope…just give me the gallon and I’ll jump right in. Luckily my decision worked out. The walls are now clean, fresh and bright.

Art room reborn!

Art room reborn!

With an 8-month-old playing freely in the den, Continue Reading…

Renewed

marylizingramart —  July 23, 2012 — Leave a comment

As I’ve said before, there are five of us, plus two cats, living in a small house. When we were house hunting, we wanted something small but with the requirement of one extra space for my art room. The “one extra room” we found is a long skinny room with lots of light, and as an artist, I have a lot of stuff to cram in there: acrylic paint, oil paint, watercolors, soft pastels, oil pastels, graphite sticks, brushes, papers, boards, easels, frames…you get the idea. The tricky part is storing it all in the small space in a way that keeps kids out of it, and making it clear enough to actually enjoy being in there! To make this space livable, there is a constant cycle of cluttering and cleaning. I purge the room (and the house!) fairly often, but this time, more was needed. My art room needed a renewal, just as my art and my outlook has been renewed. I took out curtains, junk, and reorganized to make it brighter, fresher and CLEANER. The good news for those interested in exploring pastels and fearful of what I half-jokingly call “pastel lung,” is that there was remarkably little pastel dust after 5 years of not wiping my window sills and top molding (gross, I know…sorry!). So, ta-da! I’m ready to work, the room as cleared out as its going to get.

I even cleaned off the kids’ art area. My trusty sidekicks got right to work messing it up, as expected. But what else is an art room for, if not to get messy?!