Upon posting about my inclusion of a 3-tier shoe rack to organize current in-progress pages, I was asked whether or not I always draw standing up. This, I suspect, is due to the position I have my drawing table set at which is rather extremely upright (eyeballing it, I'd say it's at about a 75°-80° angle). This I find is better for my back (which is still fucked) because less hunching is involved, but I still sit down. On this:

It's a LÅNGFJÄLL from Ikea. Quite a few people see this and are surprised to know that I don't have one of those wretched gaming chairs. Nothing could be worse, because those terrible things promote being sat for endless hours straight but what you want is to get up and move every hour or so, but be comfortable enough for just that duration. The LÅNGFJÄLL does just that, and its height-adjustment mechanism is sturdy enough to take the abuse demanded by constantly shifting heights depending on where you are on the page at any given second.

Looking at the above picture though, I now realize that I have a less than ideal “system” in place for my cleaning rags (seen hanging on the right-rear of the table). This I suppose is one of the benefits of posting this sort of thing: you spell everything out and in so doing realize where improvements can be made. Perhaps, a cut of cloth that is less towel-like in texture, placed well within reach on the left-hand side table, properly folded like a table napkin at a nice restaurant.

(Table napkins!!!)

This is probably a good moment to assess what I already have on my side-table:

Drawing tools. To be really precise, we're looking at 4 small pen-holder “boxes” (bought a` la carte in person from The Container Store) , 4 tiny jars, and one cotton glove. The glove I wear on my drawing-hand when inking. This reduces the possibility of smudging wet ink-lines. As for the boxes, each one is divided into 4 compartments.

1) Pencil Box: One compartment for blue and red 2.0mm mechanical pencils, each carrying blue and red leads accordingly (blue to sketch in figures, red to sketch in backgrounds, roughly speaking). One compartment holding a single Faber-Castel 0.7 Grip Plus mechanical pencil which I almost never use, one compartment holding 2B pencils and a fat 6.5mm mechanical pencil all of which I never use, and finally a compartment for my lead sharpeners, one for blue and one for red. So now I know I have two compartments in that box that can be better utilized (why it's taken me this long to realize this is blows my mind).

2) Pen Box: This one is full of black Staedtler Pigment Liners, in four different sizes: 0.1mm, 0.3mm, 0.5mm, and 0.8mm. These used to be all I inked with a long time ago (See THE SOLAR GRID #1 and #2), but I find that I rely on them less and less and prefer instead to utilize nibs and brushes.

3) Nib & Brush box: One compartment holds three nib-pens (typically switching between Kuelox and Zebra; 003, 005, and G, the latter being my most used (with the Hunt 102 on my radar to test out in the near future). Another compartment holds three brushes; Princeton 08 Round, Trekell Kolinsky ½”, and a Loew-Cornell 795 Round Series #2 which is my most used but adversely no longer in production. Much to my agony, a suitable replacement has yet to be found. The third compartment combines both nibs and brushes I use for touchups using white sumi ink; Princeton Summit Round #4 brush, Princeton Summit Round #2 brush, Silver Black Velvet 3007S Script #4 brush, and finally a 002 Kuelox nib pen. The last compartment holds a folded up tissue for emergency wipes which is almost completely unnecessary and will be discarded once the writing of this post is concluded.

4) The last and final box holds a number of small rulers and a compass (all of which actually need to be upgraded for various reasons).

Onto the jars:

Repurposed Petitpot French Pudding jars. At about 3 inches tall, these tiny glass jars are the perfect size for my sumi ink, both black and white, as well as for holding water to keep brushes clean (or go for some ink-wash techniques when needed).

There's a little more to my drafting nook than my left-hand side table, but I'll get to that in a future post.

#journal #workspace

Before:

After:

This seemingly minor upgrade comes with two rather significant benefits.

1) Efficiency: Whereas before there was only room for two stacks, the new system allows for three; New Unused Paper (bottom), Penciled Pages (middle), and Inked Pages (top), all conveniently within reach just under my tool side-table. These of course only pertain to the issue/chapter/project at hand. All previously finished chapters go into the flat files in the garage.

2) Mood elevation: I don't know about other people, but if my place of operation is schlubby, then my brain and general demeanor is schlubby. And a box with a stack of paper on it as a method of organization? It's schlubby. This may be the designer/borderline-OCD in me, but an improperly designed space just ads to my brain fog and keeps me from being able to think straight, and thinking straight is key to the type (and quantity) of work I do.

I've recently come to the decision that an artist's space need not be treated any less than a temple of creativity. Not to sound pretentious or anything, but if you think about a temple or any place of worship, it's design will always have two chief concerns: a) Functionality, and b) Atmosphere

Very practical decisions are made pertaining to seating arrangements, pedestal placement, so on and so forth, all of which have to do with the actual rituals and actions that need to be performed within such a religious space. Very functional stuff. And then, there's the stuff pertaining to atmospherics that might aid in creating a certain spiritual mood. Things like stained glass, murals, inscriptions, or the choice of incense.

It's probably a good idea to take these two chief concerns into consideration when setting up any artist's space as well. Except, rather than be shaped by religious motives, they are instead shaped by creative concerns. Everything needs to be designed as per the artist's functional needs, but the atmosphere must also be designed to inspire creativity. These two together will inform a workspace that will help an artist work seamlessly day in, day out.

For the curious, the two pieces of furniture utilized in pix above are: – Giantex Mobile End Table – Three-Tier Shoe Rack

#journal #workspace