Diana Trout's blog

Organized for Art

Cigar boxes are a great way to organize supplies, especially if they are in your living space. You can usually get these beautiful boxes at your local cigar shop, at flea markets and Ebay has them too. 

And isn't it a great idea to put these brass labels on the cigar boxes? This idea came to me from Susan Cohen (and you should check out her Pinterest boards).  I went to town with this idea.

My Zentangle supplies may just need a bigger box. 

Such a simple way to class things up. I had a whole bunch of these label holders leftover from journal making.  Google "brass label holders" and you should come up with some suppliers. I superglued them onto the front of the boxes. It is easier to put my toys away now! 

This just in ... some really nice label holders over at Amazon.

Inspiration Addict

I am a sucker for inspiration. OOOOOO! Isn't that cool, beautiful, clever, magical?! OOOO! I wanna do THAT! 

But wait a minute ... what about all of the ideas that I already have? Chopped liver? REALLY?

I sat down the other day with my journal, a pen and a pile of index-worthy scraps. I found loads of ideas right there and didn't need my computer or a book. 

The de-stash is going well. I've winnowed my fabrics down to about a third of what I had. Ruthless, I am. The rubber stamps that have been taking up a ton of space are outta here. I am down to my handcarved, a couple of sets of alphabets and a few miscellaneous. Just what I use for art journaling and classes. 

If you are in the Philadelphia area, come to the de-stash giveaway event, Sept 22. Let me know if you are interested. I will send you the info. Nothing for sale, bring what you want to give to someone else and we'll all get this stuff to anyone who wants or needs it. Not me, though :)

Doing more with less.

Organized - hah

Starting pulling some papers to make sketches and smaller works for this new series. It is easiest to just pull everything and sort into color categories. My palette is decided upon (more about that later). The pile grows larger as I pull until it seems overwhelming.

I also found a bunch of paper cloth (?) that I'd made and will come in handy. Do you squirrel things away and then forget about them? Just at the tipping point, I sorted and folder-ized things. 

It looks like a collaboration in underway between my present self and my past self. Glory Be! Another collaboration is underway and I'll catch you up with that soon. 

A Place For Everything

and Teddy in his place. 

Teddy loves a good laundry pile and since I'm a really super pet owner, I like to accomodate him. You can see a bit of my livingroom rug under the four loads of unfolded laundry. 

Great.

I fully intend to get to this today. 

You folks sure seem to like pictures of my messes so here are a couple of more for you. 

My sewing and journaling supplies are also in the livingroom. And really, I do have a place for everything, it's just that I tend to jam things in there instead of neatly putting things away.

These bookshelves are really great. All of my paper goodness is in that basket and I keep my journals on the other shelf. Above is poetry and books on writing.

The sewing basket holds all of my extraneous threads: sashiko and the crewel threads (which I recently took out to play, discovered that I didn't have an big enough needle and stuck that little basket on top of my sewing kit.)

There is a stack of baskets in the (ha!) diningroom. The theory is that when I run out of "project" baskets, it is time to put stuff away. It is kind of helpful.

There is another bookshelf right behind my livingroom desk that holds art supplies and my electronics. It is a nice cozy place to play  in the evenings, work on the computer and write and blog.

 

I was wondering why there was extra space in that bookshelf. Eureka, I do have space for one more craft! Crochet! But this is it. Really. 

This is the bottom shelf of the bookshelf. The stuff I took with my to my Wye Island retreat is still there. Right where I left it, very close to its place.

In my defense, the past several weeks have been full of work. Preparations for Italy, meeting with my new web designer/developer to wrangle my online home a bit.

I'm also getting a new online class ready. Well, revamping Inner Circle Journal. Which should be up end of June.

And then, there is the crochet. 

And so it goes

Taming Your Art Supplies

A creative mind is not a tidy one (or the quote goes something like that). I attempt the keep my supplies orderly. Don't like wasting time hunting things down. Here's a neat trick ...

Some of us would rather nap in a tidy circle ...

Your Personal Studio Space

Recently, this note popped into my email box. I completely related to her situation and thought some of you folks would as well. 

... my art studio is a good walk from the house, I like it because I can leave it messy, and do not have to worry about spills. (But), it is cold, and lonely out there. Back at the house, I can only write with pens or markers. I find myself stuck at working on any journal (page), because for writing what I’m thinking, pens and/or markers are better, but for art, I have to get messy. I never know whether my little book should stay out in the barn, or be here in the house … Do you have any suggestions?"

Yes. I do. Scattered around this post today are pictures of vignettes from my studio. 

My studio is on the third floor of my old house: cold in winter, hot in summer.

It used to feel lonely and removed up there so I made some changes. 

Good lighting: I have overhead florescents in the studio but I added lamps here and there to give it a warmer feel. When working in the evenings, I light a candle or two.

Sounds: I have a radio and iPod with its home base so that I can listen to music or talk shows. Sometimes, I'll even watch a movie on Netflix if I'm doing something repetitive.

Sights: Some of my favorite items are in my studio such as my singing bowl (left) and my stone collection.

All of my journals are stored on shelves in my studio. I can spend a peaceful hour thumbing through. There is another bookshelf (or 2) with my favorite artbooks, books on writing, craft and poetry. 

These touches around my studio make it warm and homey.

Granted, this is my work space and I spend most of every work day here. But even if your workspace is an extra room, it may feel like just a place to land while you work. If you "warm it up," you may feel more inclined to go there. 

This post takes for granted that your space is tidy (somewhat) and clean-ish. That is really important. Well, at least for me. I find it really difficult to feel comfortable in a totally trashed space. It is distracting.

 

If you do need some organizing, look at Julie Fei-Fan Balzer's Organization Week posts, here, for some tips. My best tip on organizing is that you can't get a dinosaur into a chicken egg. In other words, you have "X" amount of space. Period. 

I frequently work in my journal at night. I have a space in the livingroom carved out for that. It is small and compact. My travel watercolors and some other supplies (really enough for anyone to journal with) are stored in that space. I'll talk more about that space in another post. At the end of my workday, I pack a basket to transport my journal and any other extra supplies that I may need for the evening. My pens are always in that basket and sometimes my Inktense pencils or markers make the trip.

Artistic blocks can come in many forms and confusion is one that is familiar to me. What to do and where to do it is a legitimate question for those of us who have studios. 

I'd love ot hear if anyone else is in this situation and if you have solutions, let us know! 

Collections

Papers, purchased and found in Italy

Is it "stash" or "collection?" Do you have drawers full of fabric scraps and boxes of paper scraps not big enough for a project but too precious to toss?  Consider this: put them together in books and elevate their status to "collection." 

Saved and cherished

Textile Inspiration

Rescued from the trash at Art Is You

There are plenty of blank journals banging around here. So, yes. A project for the holiday week.

My Favorite Posts

Splash and Draw

I'm really excited to be Guest Curator over on CrescenDoh this week. Be sure to check out my favorite artists and links over there. In honor of that, I'm sharing some of own favorite links from my blog here today .. a self curator-ship. Anyway, here you are ... my top ten.

Eco Wrap with Cloth, Furoshiki Tutorial

Competitive Art Journaling - my crappy binding

Bookmarks and I wondered if it was blog-worth

Sample Books - keeping samples of your experiments: more of an idea than a tutorial

Splash and Draw - watercolors gone wild

Free Motion Newspaper - practicing free motion sewing on a pile of newspapers

Tee Shirt Necklace Tutorial

Coming Clean are you a slob, too?

Labels, a rant

Zen Stones and Cairns

see ya' soon, 

Stacks o'Paper

The truth is when I saw this over at Heather's blog, it made me indescribably happy. She and Seth cooked up a blog train of pictures of stacks of happiness, dubbed "Stackaholic" by Seth. The Internet is a grand old thingamajig, indeed.

I could get romantic here about the sun slanting in and perching on the paper, etc. Oh, the sappy heights that could be scaled there. I'll spare you that bit of melodrama. 

This gave me a chuckle last night while reviewing some recent studio snaps of my "stacks." More scattered than stacked.

There, that's a bit better. My growing pile of wearable books.
It is a most wonderful state: the sloppy pile of tattered, rustly magic.

De-Construction

Some old paintings (not working, no longer of interest, etc.) were torn off stretcher bars.

They were immediately more interesting and I recaptured valuable studio space

The stretcher bars became a view finder.

And now I read Susan Sorrell's post today on The Sketchbook Challenge blog. Limiting the view is refreshing.