Keeping work and spaces under control!

Today hasn’t been the best. Was meant to have switched to the morning shift but have come down with a heavy cold and throat infection so ended up staying home. Don't think office is surprised given my state yesterday! That’s so rare for me but it’s pretty hard to type and answer phones when you have to blow your nose every other minute. Yuk. I’d much rather have gone in - up early, get the work done, home just after lunchtime and have the rest of the day (uninterrupted), to get on with whatever I want to do. Posting the blog is about as productive as I’m likely to get.

My plan (ha) was if my battery operated strip lights had arrived (they did), I’d be using a large picture frame I got from a charity shop to make a light box - much better than tracing at a window (and that only works in daylight hours). A3 size is over thirty quid to buy new…Nah, I can make one. Looked at some YouTube videos for ideas but man, they're serious woodworking things and not much good it you have no kit and no garage either. But dang, it’s very nice work.

Me, I tend to go with re-purposing bits and bobs with whatever I have lying around. I’m a bit of a womble. If you’re not British and over…40 or so, this was a stop motion thing from way back about furry things that lived on Wimbledon Common (I actually live quite near there these days), who picked up all the rubbish that humans dumped and turned it into new stuff.

So, first random attempt; tried making one with a cardboard box and a push button cupboard light but it didn’t light up enough of the area. Then I thought about getting a bigger box and sticking a bendy desk lamp inside but…mm...clunky.

So I happen upon these mini strip lights and figured that as the 'real' light boxes are super slim, using a picture frame would work better than a box. Couldn’t get a deep frame so I’ll just use foam core to create a base with Velcro strips on the top edges so I can get in to turn lights on/off and replace batteries.

I also bought a cheapo dish drainer. Not for dishes. I wanted a place to store all my new inks so the colours were easy to see, so I got a large drainer with two flat areas. All the inks went in the wider side and fat brushes in the thinner side. It also had three parts for cutlery but now they store all my other brushes. Might use the plate slots to store cards with colour tests on them – when I do proper ones.

I love figuring out how to use things for alternative purposes – you can often end up with something that works brilliantly and is way cheaper than buying a purpose built item.

Aand - not done yet - I cobbled together a kind of toast rack to stash 2D work stages – one part for the bits of paper I do my initial scribbles on, a second for the scaled up, cleaned up versions and a third for the test paint pieces. Now I know where everything is and finished work goes straight to the right place.

Yes, I know - some people will see all this as a bit of a displacement activity, but having this kind of set up helps to keep me on track. If I have to go find things, or pull them out from under something else, or they’re just shoved on the floor until I find a proper place for them, I put off starting cos I know the chaos will increase as things proceed and this is not good when you only have very limited space to work in. Some of us artists have quite orderly minds you know - you often just can't tell from our studio spaces!