Place of work
Prompt: M - Mirkwood
TEN MINUTE ARTIST PROMPT
M - Mirkwood
"The entrance to the path was like a sort of arch leading into a gloomy tunnel made by two great trees that leant together, too old and strangled with ivy and hung with lichen to bear more than a few blackened leaves."
In today’s prompt we get another shot at drawing a Forrest this time, with some specific description from the text, you can choose to draw the description or be creative.
Hello Ten Minute Artist,
I’m in the studio for the next couple of days.
The studio being the laundry room of the apartment I live in. There is no laundry being done here, I’ve completely taken it over, if you’ve been to some of my zoom meetings you’ve been to the studio.
I’ve been spending more time in the reading room than the studio recently. And going between places can be a little disorientating. So I’m going to be thinking about how to assign the use of both spaces.
I aim to do more writing and reading in the reading room.
And more analog art and video recording in the studio.
I guess those are the rules. And based on that I now need to decide where the best place is for a few hundred items.
There are times when my studio setup is highly functional and curated, now is not one of those times, additionally the studio space can be such a fine balance one visit from a child can completely disrupt that balance! Yo move a few things around and before you know it you can’t find anything!
Anyway, I’m going to sort out the studio, you go draw Mirkwood, and when I finish, I’ll draw Mirkwood and do a video of it.
In the meantime, here are more, gnome sketches from a recent Art Gym.
Question,
Do you have a studio?
Do you work in multiple spaces?
How does your space affect your work?
Do you have different spaces for different kinds of work?
I’ll be back with a video of my Mirkwood drawing, share yours here.
I have a small drawing table in my bedroom (only 40x30cm of drawing space and a bit more for materials!), where I have the best conditions (perfect light, all my materials and the light box), only I'm sitting on the bed, my back is bent and I have no chair back. But I can just lie down from where I am! I do it often, whenever I'm waiting for colours to dry. Space is so tiny that I need to spread part of materials around me on the bed and in my lap. It may seem impractical, but it is a space of my own that I have conquered! The only drawback is that I have to move and close everything up at the end of the day. But I do it very quickly and roughly.
Due to my space my drawings are always small!
We have another desk in the living room with a PC, so I'm there especially when I need reference images, scanning and digitally finishing files. Sometimes I draw there too.
When I'm drawing with soft pastels and charcoal, as they make a lot of dust, I draw on the floor of the bedroom on the spread out cloth, on my knees. I can't stay like this for long so maybe that is why I use this technique quickly and therefore very expressively!
Many years ago I used to complain that I didn't have a big enough drawing table or the right conditions, until one day I saw Helen Stephens in a photo sitting on a tiny desk with a woolly hat wrapped up in a jumper. She didn't even have enough heat where she was drawing! That inspired me not to look for the perfect space, but to find a space of my own where I feel perfectly!
Oh, this makes me grin! So real. Thanks for this snippet of your creative life. I will have a studio when our adult children are gone. We were old parents, and great for young ones, but not good at the launching phase—will we ever get that empty nest we hear about? And it doesn't seem like it's because they enjoy being with us! 😊 But it will happen, and that's where I can spread out the art supplies and play! And you're all invited, because you need to see Whidbey Island anyway.
I do have a writing room which will be more accessible and welcoming when I tame the chaos of its current state. It feels more like being in a small treehouse (we do have one of those, too) with windows on three sides and a sky light, created by an addition where there used to be a balcony off our bedroom. Who needs a balcony when you live on five acres of trees? Thanks for the nudge to make this sweet little room inviting once again, even if that wasn't anywhere near your intention. A new focus to put off sketching? Maybe... But it might help me get there.