Working from Home.....

I thought I'd share where I'm working this weekend.  I've taken my wood easel over to Bentonsport to be in the studio there in the Herman Greef House so, I've gone back to my old metal Standrite to work off of at home.  Because I like to have my easel level upright or leaning slightly forward, I use a 12 lb dumbbell sitting on the back leg to "balance" the easel.  Keeps it from tipping on forward.

I never lack for company either when working in this space.  There's usually all 3 cats occupying the chairs. So far, I'm lucky they don't try and walk across my paints or pastels.

Here you can sorta glimpse at how I've arranged my pastels in my Lammert Paint Box.  I have so many boxes from pastel sets that I've purchased over the years that I decided to  modify a few to create my set up as you see here.

  These are the lids to a couple of Terry Ludwig boxes.  Plastic inserts are from another set of pastels and in the center of the box, I'm leaving my 120 half stick Sennelier box in place.  I've glued the foam covers to a foamboard cut to lay directly on top when packing.

I then place the pastel boxes at the sides on top,,,,,centered so the doors will close.  Everything sits firmly in place when I travel holding the box vertically.

I had thought of creating dividers and laying my pastels next to each other (a set up I had in my easyl plein air box), which would allow for more pastels being with me at all times, but softer pastels tend to break easier then the semi-soft and I like to have the variety of hard to very soft and hand made pastels with me at all times.  I use them all when creating a painting.

In case you're wondering about the orange bungee straps, they're fastened on the box and I can carry my pastel pencils in a canvas brush holder on the back side .  It's an option to strap on my tripod and canvas holder on the top.  I couldn't find straps the exact length I needed to keep everything snug when fastened, so I tied knots in the chords to shorten them.

I've become so used to working from the tripod, I now prefer setting it up like this instead of using my side table, you see here, to lay out a palette.  AND....depending on the size of a work (this one pictured here works fine on the tripod canvas holder) and light source, I set up the tripod as close to being directly under the metal or wood easel I'm using in the studio.

"Wabbles at Play"

10"x 8" watercolor

I've been hanging on to pics I've taken of my cats playing and napping to use as study references.  It's about time I start creating something with them and here's a quick watercolor sketch of our oldest kitty Wabbles.

She was born with no sense of balance so she spreads her back legs out to catch herself.  She is so much fun to play with and sooooooooooo happy.  Our vet is amazed she's still going strong at 11 years old.  She's banged her head a few times where we thought of inventing a "nerf" helmet for her.  

Now she spends more time watching the 2 young boys, Obie & Zeus, chase each other around the house.

I did this sketch on matboard covered with Clear AS Colourfix Mult-media Primer.