studio – Dawn Blanchfield

Some people are all about spring cleaning, but I am a New Year cleaning kinda person. I take down the Christmas decorations and get all inspired by the uncluttered spaciousness of the house and I’m off! My studio always gets cleaned up for company in December because it is technically the formal living/dining space and we host Christmas dinner, so by the time January comes around, the studio is already in pretty good shape. But there is always room for some organizational improvement and the purging of hoarded “I might use this someday” art supplies! This year I tossed a bunch of old magazine and sorted through a pile of random packing materials and papers on a shelf of the workbench. Usually, that would be enough procrastinating and I could get back to making art, but noooo….

My arch-nemisis “Big Dumb Brain” decided that maybe Ink & Bone Alchemy should include a Society6 account in addition to the Esty shop. Oh and we should probably learn to use a new vector art program while we’re at it. And if it doesn’t seem like I hate myself enough, yesterday I decided to redesign my website!

oh. my. fucking. god. why??!!!

::deep breath::

::one more::

I’m fine. I only obsessed over it for a day and a half. What theme will best bend to my will? Galleries or pages? And I still am not sure how things should be organized! But I think I have the site looking and functioning close to what I wanted. I still have more new work to add (I’m going to have to warm up my scanner soon) and a shit-load of information to add to all the new galleries, but at least it is up and running again.

I was just informed today is Sunday, not Saturday like I thought. huh. I should probably shower.

I have also been buying/transplanting a bunch of plants. I obviously am not killing enough things in my new video game! #elfinikills #brownthumbforever #poorplantsneverdonenoonenoharm

One last Christmas procrastination to complete!

One tube of white paint at a time.

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Today’s easel view. I will be forever entertained that the gun print in the background always seems to be pointing at someone’s head!

We have been in our new house for over a year now and I can’t even express how much I love my studio space without resorting to lots of little hearts and glitter. And I don’t roll that way.

much.

I love sitting at my desk and being able to turn and mad dog whatever is on my easel. Today we have two acrylic paintings that I have been working on in fits and starts for a couple months. Actually the bottom panel was an old unfinished painting from last year. So many layers. And I’ve spent the past two days just adding white paint over white paint. I have no idea where it will go from here, but it’s at an interesting place right now.

And then there is all the stuff churning around in my brain. I was hit with a wave of ideas for art pieces last week while flying down the freeway blasting some permutation of Jack White on the stereo. And it wasn’t just a couple random ideas, I saw the complete installation in a gallery. It was kind of amazing. Now my challenge is to see if I can create those pieces. It started with sculptural wall pieces – something I’ve never done before. I have no idea how I’m gonna pull those off, but my plan is to start with a small maquette and experiment with materials. There were also photographs – cyanotypes to be specific. Hey lucky me, I was already planning on doing an Independent Study in Alternative Process this upcoming semester. I had no idea what I was going to work on when I brought this up to Randy (professor) last spring, but now I know exactly what I need to do. And I am slowing getting things together to put myself in front of the camera. Big leaps here people.

2 weeks ago, I had a sudden urge to go to the library and check out a book that I hadn’t finished the first time around. It’s a big book. While I was looking for what I went in for, I ran across “The Artist’s Way” and decided to grab that too. Oh life, it’s bigger.

Tag: studio

New Year = New Website

The Artist’s Way