Studio Housekeeping

Posted by on Jul 12, 2013 in Blog | One Comment

BB 26-27 final 150

Since I last posted here, I have sent off the art for BOOM BOOM, a 32-word picture book (each word is repeated once so it’s really 16 words, twice) by Sarvinder Naberhaus. It was a mad rush towards the end (it always is) and after I shipped it out, I felt joy, relief, and just a touch of fear (what if they don’t like it?…). Then the next day I came back to this:

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What a mess!

Because the techniques I use involve many different tools and materials, things tend to spread out a bit.

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My workspace gets kind of cluttered.

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Pretty much every surface gets covered with something.

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When I run out of horizontal space, I go vertical.

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Since I usually am printing more than one image at a time, I need to have a lot of colors available on my inking table.

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I try to keep them from drying out with saran wrap, and in order to keep track of what detail is which color, I started labeling the saved colors with a marker (and to keep track of the nine children I feature in the images, I gave them all names). All this needs to get scraped off and wiped clean.

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And then I have to clean all my tools.

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Plus there is the added detritus left from mounting the art and packing it up.

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It feels good to be done with a large project like this at last, but also a little sad. I’ve enjoyed working on this book. I’ve lived with it for many months now. I will miss these characters and their world that I’ve made up, but I look forward to seeing them again, in a year or so, in their new home – the book itself.

BB 32 final 150

1 Comment

  1. Jill Mackay
    January 25, 2014

    Thank you so much for posting this. My studio is in my house and it looks like this off and on quite regularly. In fact I am glad that my studio has a door because when my non-artist friends see a mess like this their faces show confusion as if I must be mad! I love your work and you are a personal creative hero of mine. I make my living designing mostly jewelry components and findings but I am an illustrator and painter at heart. You do my heart good! Thank you!

    Best to you,
    Jill

    Reply

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