Finding an area to set up your indoor easel and painting supplies can be a challenge in a small house/apartment. You need good light preferably coming from a north window, along with some additional portable lighting. Shelves or cabinets are needed to hold paints, brushes, canvases etc. also a place to stand or sit and maybe a flat spot to set up still life arrangements. Outlets nearby to plug in lights etc. are good, otherwise you’ll need extension cords. Racks, shelves or a stand to hold your finished paintings is essential.
I use a corner of my bedroom that fortunately has a north facing window for continuous steady light. There is another window on the east wall for extra lighting and outlets on both walls. I have a set of shelves in the corner to hold supplies and I have both indoor and outdoor easel setups to use in combination. That gives me plenty of palette room for paints. For enlarging a small painting I can have the small study on the outdoor pochade box and the larger canvas on the bigger indoor easel.
I have several wet painting carrier boxes ( another blog post) to hold finished paintings so they are safe. I used some clamps on the top shelf edge to hold some finished paintings to look at.
My laptop is behind me on a desk so the two areas are a good working combination. I can upload photos to my laptop and paint from them or set my smartphone on top of the easel to paint from ( yet another good blog/post).
The studio area is away from traffic and I can close the door if I want complete privacy, although usually it’s open. It works quite well but I wish there were more square footage or less bedroom stuff. 🙂
Try to find an out of the way corner/area to set up your painting equipment so it is always there waiting for your inspired moments. Even if it’s a portable, easy to set up area on a kitchen table, make sure to allow yourself at least an hour and a half out of the days activities to do some painting.
Paint.Relax.Repeat.
until next time
JeffreyJBowers