Organized Chaos

NOTE:  Several of the photos are duplicated in this post.  I was unable to remove them.  They don't show up while creating the post, just when it's published.  Oops!
 The Space

Artists are often not noted for being the most organized people in the world, but taking the time to organize supplies in your work space is time well spent, especially, if like me, you have way more art supplies than you can ever possibly use.

When I was fortunate enough to add a large studio to our home, I thought I had tons of space.  Now, four years later, it is crammed to the gills with paintings, canvases and supplies for six different media.  If they weren’t fairly organized, I would never be able to find anything.

I’ll begin today with some tools and materials, and in a future post I’ll talk about organizing my finished works.

The Tools and Supplies

    Whenever I purchase any new supplies I immediately label them.  To keep my oil brushes separate from my acrylic brushes, I dip the ends of the oil brushes in red acrylic paint (dries fast) and put them in a container just for oil brushes.  I label the tops of all my mediums so they are easier to spot on a low shelf.  I keep all of my drawing materials in cups so that they are easier to see and reach.

  All of my paints are stored in drawers, labeled by color families.  Watercolors/ gouache in the small drawers and oils and acrylics in the larger ones.  If I run out of a color, I have a list on top to keep track of what I need to buy.

   I try to keep all similar materials together in one space if possible -- notice the pastels are ordered by hue and value.

    I work in Collage a lot so I keep my smaller, more special papers in boxes by color, and the supplies like pastes in the area where I work on the collages.  If you have a small space and no room to store them like this, it's still a good idea to keep your papers organized by hue first, then by value.  Saves lots of time looking for that perfect piece!

  Sometimes, no matter how organized you want to be, there are some things that defy order.  I store all those large random rolls of collage/ mixed media papers in baskets by a wall.

   One final wonderful way to organize all the weird, awkward "stuff" is with pegboards.  If you can possibly find a place for them, you can store almost anything with hooks and baskets or buckets.

WATCH FOR MORE IDEAS IN FUTURE POSTS.  DROP ME A COMMENT and let me know if this was helpful.