my "studio" is the kitchen table and I'm so tired of moving everything
Started a new still life tonight after the kids finally went to bed. Got all my supplies out on the kitchen table, got my palette set up, got maybe 20 minutes into blocking in the background and realized I forgot to pack my son's lunch for tomorrow. So I had to stop, wipe my hands, make a sandwich, put the grapes in the little container he'll complain about anyway. Came back and the paint on my palette was already starting to skin over.
I love painting in the cracks of the day but man, I dream about having a space I can just leave a mess and come back to. Even a corner. Just one corner where a half-finished canvas isn't in danger of getting ketchup on it.
Anyone else making it work in a non-studio studio? How do you handle the constant setup/teardown without losing momentum?
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the skin-over thing is the real dagger, i hate that so much. i used to paint in my kitchen too before i got a studio share and the number of half-finished things i just abandoned because i couldn't come back to them same-day... it's a lot.
one thing that helped a little before i had space: i got one of those sealing wet palette things, the ones with the sponge and the paper. not a fix but it buys you like an extra day before everything turns into plastic. at least stops the "guess i'm remixing this color from memory" game.
also your kid not appreciating the grapes is so real lmao. one day he'll understand the sacrifice
Oh the wet palette is such a good call. I keep meaning to get one and then I'm at the store and I forget what I went in for lol. Adding it to my list for real.
And ha, the grapes... I swear he'd be happier if I just threw a bag of chips in there but I'm trying okay 😅 one day he'll appreciate the effort, probably when he's like 30 and packing his own kid's lunch
The wet palette helps, but it's a half-measure. What really gets you is the momentum loss, that 20 minutes you had wasn't just 20 minutes, it was the run-up, the getting into the headspace. When you have to stop and make a sandwich, that's gone. You can't save it in a palette.
I had a corner of the bedroom for years, before the divorce, before the second marriage. Just a table. I'd wrap my brushes in plastic and hope. Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. The real problem isn't the palette skinning over, it's the self you were when you started painting, she's gone by the time you come back.
The kid will come around on the grapes eventually. Or he won't. My daughter still won't eat certain things and she's twenty-six.