Thursday, May 2, 2013

You Silly Boy

Pretty Eyes Caught Napping
10" by 20" by ¾" acrylic on cradled wood
April 29, 2013

This time, Pretty Eyes is lying down acting silly.  He is so much fun to paint!  In fact, he is just as much fun to photograph.  I pose him around the room in various poses and with different other dolls.  I plan on painting him many more times, I hope he will always be with me.

I decided to take this time to talk about my paint box. 

In the 1980's when I began to paint, I found I needed something to organize my paint tubes.  I worked in a place that wasn't threatened when you had time to work on personal projects.  Something unheard of today I believe.  I took large sheets of cardboard from the film boxes, I worked in Radiology.  Oh, I don't think they used film anymore, now everything is digital.  How times change.  Never think that something is a basic to life and won't change.  Take J.C. Penney's for example.  They are struggling to hang on but in the end, they will go and become a memory of something that seemed would always be here.

Anyway, I digress - again!  Back to my paint box.  I could place the tubes in it in such a way that you could cross match them to work with each other much as a color wheel worked. That worked as long as I had a limited number of tubes.  You can guess how long that lasted!  It is now only used to store some of my tubes, I have about three times as many tubes as would fit in it now.  It also has a drawer under the tubes to store odd and end in.  Of course that has filled many times over, too!

After I designed what I thought would make a good storage box, I went to my Father and asked him to make it for me.  Boy was I lucky and I knew it , not everyone could get something they designed made.  Now that he is gone, I have to store my tubes in plastic bins and baskets.

Even though it is filled and overflowing, I am still so proud of it.  It is just one of the things that make my studio so special.  I am really blessed, my studio is so much fun to work in and so well stocked.  I could use more room but who couldn't.  If it became necessary, I could take my family room which takes up about half the room, out and give that space to the studio, but I don't need that kind of space now and enjoy so much having my studio at one end of my family room.  I hate leaving my living area, always have.  When I've dedicated a room to a particular purpose, example an office, it hasn't worked.

I'm sorry!  I'm just rattling on and could continue but to what purpose?  Time to say Goodnight Gracie!

2 comments:

Doug Beckers said...

I really like this article as I have about 80 liquitex tubes that I'd like to store and your box looks like a solution. Has the box got wooden dividers to separate the colours? Cheers Doug

beckielboo said...

Doug, I'm so glad you like it. I wish I could really show it to you!
Anyway, YES, there is a sheet of wood, that Dad used a drill press and put in individual holes for each tube. That grid is sandwiched in between the top and bottom of that section. It really works well. As I mentioned in my article, I measured out everything on the cardboard and then gave that to Dad as the pattern.

I hope you are able to devise something similar for your studio. Finding a good way to store and display your paint is so important when you are painting. Besides, you also will be so proud of it after you design it and it works.

Thanks so much for your interest. Let me know if you end up making one.

Beckie