Art Studio Refresh for Self-care - How I organise & declutter my space

[Music] [Music] [Music] so last week i was talking about ways to stay inspired creatively and one of the things i talked about was environment this week i've spent a couple of days reorganizing my studio and especially the area where i paint the place where i can be loose and free and get messy i call this my wet area i know i'm really lucky to have such a great space and believe me i don't take it for granted but whether you have a little space on the floor that you set up from a box of supplies kept under your bed or an expansive split-level barn with rural views or the attic in an old house i believe that making it a place you love to be really helps spark and sustain those inspiration juices in fact any space not just a creative one gives us a mood and well-being boost doesn't it most of the videos i watch on here on youtube are about this exact same thing i have to say i really enjoyed this process and especially because i really feel now that i am properly settling into this room which is still relatively new to me i am now down to some fine tuning to really make the studio an even happier happy place the intention is to promote the essential well-being aspects of my creative process so that my lights stay bright and this can be reflected through my art making i wanted to make improvements so my room becomes more practical uplifting more organized low maintenance to keep tidy and inviting as well as a special inspiring multi-sensory space let's see how i got on so now i've got my little um smokey thing going the diffuser with my lovely cedar oil and i've dug out something that can act as a curtain just to hang right from the top of that window i don't know if i can get that in there we go so i think i'm going to ask james to put a wire right at the top there to just block a bit of sunlight in the morning and it'll keep the room a little bit cooler and then we have to work in here in over this end i don't tend to go down there and it's not too bad down there actually but yeah this end it gets really really like full-on sun in the morning i don't really like sitting in the heat or seeing my screen i can't can't see it very well so having a little curtain up there will help and then i can pull it back as the afternoon sun moves round and i just wanted to add in a really nice aromatherapy aspect to the room multi-sensory and have that going i think it goes for 30 seconds and then turns itself off for 30 seconds and then goes again james and i decided to get one each for one for his room and one for mine so we've ordered some different oils as well to put in there and then yeah if i do a little pan on my on my workspace you can see i don't really have let's see i'm getting all this in i don't really have enough organization and space to actually paint properly and i do like to kind of come in in the morning and have that space ready for me to just jump in and paint or add something to something but at the moment yeah it's really got to a point where it's chock-a-block and because if i just swing around here again this area here i don't need the lamp there because i don't i don't sit here to work so i don't need a task lamp so that can go and this stuff is all stored and what i could do because it's art supplies is first of all sort out my my art trolley so yeah swap ends basically so the stuff that's at that end is going to this end and then vice versa so that that part there the two-thirds of it if you like up to about that point is all work area for me yeah so that's the plan this morning so i thought you could keep me company while i uh sort it all out basically [Music] so just a little check-in then to see what i found during my um my tidy up it's amazing what you find isn't it when you're doing a tidy up couple of things i did i think this is the second year of my degree where i was doing a self-portrait project and i was doing a lot of interior and kind of abstracty work as well in oils and i think this is one of the only things i've got left from my degree apart from this one so i did my degree went what year it was 1993 to six and then this little one here has had to come off its um frame that's not the right frame because the frame got broken um while i was away one year and it was a finished painting obviously and so it got a little bit damaged here at the edge and i think there was oh yeah a little spot of damage here as well i think something fell on it um yeah so i'm just going to i'm going to have to use a plane or get james to just make this a little bit smaller we haven't got around to it yet we keep meaning to so it's one of those little jobs and then re-stretch the canvas and then once i've done that i'm going to fill in these little dents and then hopefully i can uh yeah still retrieve it maybe sell it for a reduced price or something found what we're looking for in life call us crazy but things [Music] so i'm getting on okay i think and um yeah just arranging things how i want them at the moment and move things around as you've seen i just want to bang a few more nails in and i had an extra panel um from this easel thing my um my bench and james suggested yesterday that maybe i put it 90 degrees yes if i put it i've just wedged it there with that mirror it's really heavy so it's not attached at all yet but um just to build me a little corner to be able to store extra things and lean things against them and things like that so yeah that might be quite nice and it and it actually when i'm sitting hang on a sec yeah so when i'm sitting down here if you like i i've got like a little corner which kind of blocks off the door so that could be quite nice feng shui for yeah just feeling quiet and peaceful hmm and i quite like it i said to james yesterday i wasn't sure but now i've sort of put it in situ um yeah so maybe i'll do that yeah and obviously i have written my um picasso quote on the wall as well which i rather like so um we're getting there i just thought i'd turn the camera around and um say hi because i don't think i've done that this morning have i i've been showing you all the stuff that's going on so hi hang on a sec let me get my juice yes i have a little juice break it's thirsty work so i'm having juice but if you're having tea or coffee cheers to you i still haven't had a coffee and i'm feeling okay but i must be honest i have had some caffeine in the form of matcha green tea just one cup in the morning and that's been yeah got rid of my headaches and just made me feel a little bit more alive in the morning so that's great recommend that we've not decided how long we're going to give up caffeine for at the moment but we're definitely not going to have any in may james wanted a cup the other morning at the weekend and i said try a green tea have a matcha and he didn't have a coffee he had this matcha instead so we're both doing okay actually so there's the coffee waffle and um yeah i'm gonna get back to sorting out this mess so yeah that's what we're looking like over there now i left all that stuff because that's going to stay there anyway so it's just a case of swapping the ends and at the moment that looks like that but i'm probably going to shuffle things around a little bit as i am as i settle in it feels better already and i think i need to obviously i'm going to pick the plant off the floor the plant by the way a little update on our little plant i can't remember what kind of tree it is now somebody did tell me i'm not sure i could actually pronounce it i call him the tree of hope anyway uh he's supposed to be one of the easiest indoor trees to grow and i was managing to destroy it and every morning when i came in it was losing more and more leaves in quite a dramatic way so somebody i can't remember who it was um it might have been one of my patrons or it might have been one of you on the youtube told me what kind of tree it was and then i looked it up and i realized i'd been over watering it and also it didn't like sunshine so i've since stopped watering it i haven't watered it at all it does need maybe a little water tomorrow or the next day and i've put it in this corner here which is the shadiest corner in the room it doesn't get any direct sun at all and yeah i've come in this morning and it's it's got some new leaves you've got some new little baby leaves i don't know if you can um see in here it's got a new leaf this is the one only one was saved on that one and it's got another down here as well another little new shoot with new leaves on it and this is a new one as well so he's much happier already so therefore i'm much happier too and i'm going to put him in the corner where he's happy and then i might move some of these big canvases just so there's not so many sticking out um that sticks out a little bit too far so i can either put them under the bench down here or maybe at the end when i rejig things around so so far so good huh i love watching decluttering and tidying up videos on youtube because i always find it inspires me to want to do a little declutter tidy up thing so yeah i hope this is um inspiring you to clean out a draw or a little corner or just an area that's been really really bothering you so for example at home at the moment one of the areas that's really really bothering me and we haven't got around to decluttering yet is our entrance way where we store our coats shoes scarves things like that and i think that's brewing now i'd like to get that little area sorted because once you start decluttering and organizing it's kind of a bit addictive isn't it you kind of want to do a little bit more and a little bit more so yeah and i might not get everything sorted on the oval office today but i'd like to get this part organized so that i can at least do a little bit of painting this afternoon and also when i come in in the morning so [Music] so i've been in a little while this morning already just sort of puttering around in my new organized space i haven't quite finished and i'll get to that in a minute but i did spend some time yesterday afternoon just sort of finalizing where i wanted my stuff to be if you like so it was really going to work for me in a really ergonomic way and i haven't finalized that properly yet because i need to live in it for a few weeks i think and actually work in it just to make those final adjustments but i'm pretty happy that i've kind of plotted it out the way i want it and i got sidetracked yesterday because as i was going through all my art supplies i realized i had a couple of things missing and so i sort of went on a bit of a mission to try and find the uh the lost items and i've not found them yet so that's a bit of a mystery where those are and it doesn't really matter because it's not things that i use or need right now but it was just like that um yeah that thing of not being able to find them and not knowing where they were and i knew they weren't at home even though i did double check yesterday anyway i haven't found them yet so hopefully they'll turn up over the next few weeks and the other little puzzle i had to solve was to work out a way to keep the space tidy but without putting things away all the time because quite often i have my my sort of favorite art supplies that i'm using right now for a series of work or work that is related to each other and so i don't want to keep putting my pencil cranes back in the box if you like so i've worked out a kind of easy way to keep them neat and tidy but also have access to them really easily and have them on my desk without them completely cluttering my space and me not being able to work anyway i'm going to finish tidying up i've got down here on the floor i've got a few bits and bobs that i just need to tidy up and organize a little bit and mostly my drawing art supplies and then i'm going to organize the bottom of my trolley i think i've worked out the top of the trolley now and i might ask james to put some hooks as well for my rags as well that would be really helpful and then i can hang those up i tend to hook them over the tops of my easels when they're when they're all wet i swap them round and then dry them out and then every few months or so maybe every six months actually it's not very regularly i'll take them home and wash them in the washing machine so it's basically just a few teeny tiny little adaptations if you like just tweaks to make the studio really work tickety-boo i want to be comfortable happy tidy-ish feel peaceful and calm and at ease and inspired really inspired to you know to work i think throughout all our travels when we were either living in the van and traveling in the van or when we were house sitting because we did quite a few longer term house sits it always took me a good few weeks to settle in and find a space where i could create and i think the same things happened in this room and it's just taking me a little while to find out first of all you know where i was comfortable in the room to actually work and obviously this corner is my happy place and then obviously once i've worked out where i want to work i can then finer tune reorganize where my stuff needs to be so for example that end needed to be the storage and this end needed to be an extended workspace and i've got enough space for me to have paint tubes and pencils and things like that out so things that i'm using without it crowding my workspace so i've still got a space to create and also i i'm definitely going to be working on the floor as well i love working on the floor and the other day when i was working on the floor i got so much done so anyway i'm going to finish up and then i can get painting oh yeah so this is what i do to organize all my small items that i'm using in all my current projects i don't want to leave them out constantly on my workspace and as i'm a mixed media artist it's often a challenge to keep tidy i end up having clutter everywhere and that causes me overwhelm and also a restricted work area any pencil cranes i need to keep easy access to i store in these little trays which can stack so i currently have one for my prismacolors one for my graphite and one for my karen dash and now i've cleaned the art trolley of items i don't use regularly i can store everything on there it's out of the way but it's still within my view and within easy reach i'll probably adapt this over time and ideally would love an extra shelf on my trolley i wonder if james will get the chance to modify it for me so just to show you what's going on in the rest of the room then i'm kind of okay this side of the room we had shop orders yesterday so i tidied all that area up the shop area we like to pack on the standing table and then all the sort of bits and bobs are over there in the corner but the thing i do still have kind of disorganized is i'm going to straighten you up a bit sorry okay is um yeah the oval office so it's not too bad i've got kind of put things in piles and things like that um and yeah i need to find homes for a few bits and bobs i do get asked quite a lot about my art nouveau book so it is i always forget um when i'm reading the comments um who the authors are but this is it it's the art it says art nouveau down the side and obviously we've got klimt's the kiss and it's rosalind orminstern ormiston and michael robinson so that's who that's by and it is a really lovely book um i love it so much and i think i've mentioned a few times now that i i don't really buy many books but this one really got my eye a few years ago and james treated me to it some nice book shops in glastonbury and this one was from one of those so yeah that was that the authors of that i meant to say that a few weeks ago so let's go to the important corner shall we and see what's going on around here and i'll just show you quickly round because i don't want to make this video super long obviously you've seen me do the trolley and the top of the trolley it's all done as well see if i can get a better angle hang on the top of the trolley's all done as well i've got all my paints and my mediums and all sorts of bits and bobs here famous black gesso everyone asks me about and yes i'm really liking this board that i've propped up james is going to attach it for me properly so it's not going to be wonky like that but i just put it yesterday in situ to see how i felt with it up i thought it might block the feng shui of the door so hang on a sec see if i can get better and there you go you can see i've just propped it up and it's kind of a bit wonky but i thought it might block the block the chi if you like you're thinking that in terms of feng shui but it actually creates a really nice cubby when i'm sitting over there working so i think that's going to be a nice addition to the room so the other side of that corner then is here where i've set up an area to store my canvases and then as i move further along the bench i'm going to stack i've got most of my brushes are now over here and i've also got a load of um empty jars and containers because i'm a bit of a collector of those they always come in handy and then i've got this area here which is to dry my paint brushes and also when i've rinsed my mugs out i'll just tip them up here and just dry them on here and and then i've created this little box here with regularly used items if you like so it's got loads of bits and bobs in there but they're in a box and they're all together that's very marie condo isn't it having a tray or a box for things and then moving on to my main um work area this this drawing board here that james gave me a few years ago i've got all of this to use as an easel so i can stand and do my work and then i can sit here and currently i've got some bits and bobs on here but i'm going to keep this pretty clear and then i just as i was rooting through i found a little mermaid so i think i'm going to finish her she's quite old so i've got a lot of corrections to do on her but i think she might be quite fun and then i've got my um my recent piece so give those to james and you can photograph them and they can go in the shop and then further along let's just move the chair on so further along on this side of the room this is my biggest change really because this is the area that's now opened up and so obviously i've put put the tree of hope where he's happy with the quote he quite likes picasso as well i think and then i kept that corner pretty clear because i'm not entirely sure what i'm going to put there apart from i've got all my palettes down there and then my easel as well so i'm not quite sure how i'm going to use that area and i've also taken all my water containers and the brushes i'm currently using and put those off the drawing board so hmm just need to move in and settle in and start working to know exactly how it's all going to work out but it feels so different so it's opened it up so much so thank you so much for watching and if you like the video and you haven't subscribed already you can subscribe to my channel or you can check me out on instagram i hope you have a beautiful creative weekend try to keep your lights as bright as you can and i will see you in the next one bye for now bye [Music] just begun [Music] us crazy but things [Music] [Music]

Channel: The Unexpected Gypsy

Views: 19,860

Rating: 4.9674134 out of 5

Keywords: mixed media art, art for mental health, art for self care, mixedmediapainting, art journaling, art rituals, patreon, artist studio, self care, artist vlogs, journaling, how to set up a journal, grey hair, grey hair transition, how to get over artist blocks, minimalism, organising my, organising my room, art studio organization, art studio organization ideas, art studio organization tips, decluttering my room, decluttering and organizing, art supplies organization, selfcare

Id: QJ4NKqAJ2CQ

Length: 25min 32sec (1532 seconds)

Published: Fri May 21 2021