Ep 5 - How to Set up your Ideal Art Making Space
If you want to create art more often than you do right now, THIS is the episode for you. I walk you through how to set up the ideal art making space for you, in your life, right now.
(Psssst! I’ve created a free workbook to help you to do this so make sure to download it below!)
In This Episode Keita Discusses:
· Why it’s important to create a physical space for your art making practice
· Important things to consider when setting up your studio or art making spot
· Ways to make your space a creative sanctuary that you want to be in
Mentioned in this Episode:
Click Here to Download your FREE WORKBOOK to help you with the next steps for setting up your ideal art making space.
Make sure to share a picture of your finished space on Instagram and tag @artbykeita so I can see what you’ve created!
Hello, and welcome to the painty mama podcast, we're total artists are poor. Throw kids in the mix, and it seems impossible to thrive. While balancing motherhood, creative projects, and building a business along with everything else, is hard. I believe the universe gave you your unique talents and children. So you could live a full, inspiring, creative, beautiful life together. Join me for conversations about creativity, motherhood, business, and finding calm in the chaos. I'm Keita Thomas. And this is the Painty Mama Podcast.
00:39
Hello, lovely, how are you? I hope you're doing well. I just recorded this whole episode, and then realized that my mic wasn't plugged in. So doing this for the second time. But today, I wanted to talk to you about setting up your ideal art making space.
00:58
It's made such a huge difference to me to have a designated space is really when I started to think of myself as an artist. Because before that, I was just always putting it off. I was like, "well, I can't, you know, have all these wonderful things that people have that are artists, and there's just me and my tiny basement suite at the time. And three kids like how can I be an artist, I don't have space, I don't have time". And I just saw it as a huge barrier for a really long time. However, we're gonna talk about how it doesn't have to be. And I wish that I would have had this episode a few years ago, because I think it really would have helped me. So that's why I'm creating it for you, I'm hoping that it's going to help you to just change a little bit of perspective so that you can see that there aren't necessarily blocks where you think there might be in creating your ideal space.
01:56
Also, as women, sometimes I think we can be afraid to take up space, like physically taking up space is like a claiming of a thing. And there's like this perceived gracefulness in putting yourself last as a woman, and I don't think that that is helpful. I don't think that's going to help you in your life, to be the best woman, best person that you can be. You don't need to make yourself small to fit other people's expectations, you need to take up room and be the person that you are meant to be in this world. And if that means by symbolically taking up space in your own home, it's your home for starters! So, if that means that you are going to take up some space to make some painty-ness happen, some creativity flow, then you go do it, please, please do it! Please do it for you please do it for the world because the world needs your creativity in it to make it a better place.
03:03
So the first thing is to figure out what your actual goal is with creating an art space. What is it that you want to get out of it? Are you creating this space because you want more creativity to be around the house? Do you want artistry to flow into the lives of your children and them to be around it? Do you want to build a small side business out of it? Do you want to go bold and make a full time business out of your artwork? Whatever your reason is, it's totally valid for you to take up space. And it might be a combination of all those reasons, or it might be one or two of them. But it's okay for you to take up that space. Because you want your creativity to support your family's life, maybe your family's financial situation. So it's okay for you to be supported in having a creative space to go to like your creativity is going to support your family. So your creativity also needs support in that it needs a space to flourish in. So once you've got clear on like why you want to create an art making space, you've really got to think into like, "why do I want this to happen?" Because that's going to give you the fuel to actually make it happen. So get really clear on why you want that to happen.
04:29
And then the second thing I want you to do once you've asked yourself why the second thing is, I want you to dream and dream big like dream about if you had your ideal space to create in. If you had, you know collections of all those things I know you've pinned on Pinterest, and I know you've looked up before, if you could blend all those together all those images that you've looked at and thought "Oh, I wish I had a space like that. That way would be perfect for me to make things in". If you could gather all of those and close your eyes for a minute and just breathe, and just dream up and allow your mind to go imagine yourself standing in the middle of that space. What does it look like? And what does it feel like to be in it? How do you feel when you're being creative in it? What does it smell like? What what are the sounds going on in that space.
05:29
And just really let your imagination go. If you need to pause this podcast, and then press play in a few minutes to dig in deeper, just give yourself a moment to just dream big. Okay, so if you've done that, then the next thing we have to do to get your space into reality is we need to scale it. So we're going to scale it back, we're going to scale it back to where you are, we're going to break it down into different pieces of it. I'll give you an example. So my ideal dream space is a huge, bright, white walled studio with tons of light and huge windows with so much natural light flooding into it. And I'm working away and I feel free. And there's loads of room for me to make spattery paint messes everywhere, because I like to sometimes get a bit messy with oil paints and flick them around and sometimes get a bit lost in that, and then I can really make a mess. But I want to be able to do that, because it's part of what I love about creating things is I like the messy bit too. I'm a very messy painter. And I also have in my dream space, I've got like wall to wall, beautifully organized, every paint color of the rainbow in acrylics and oils, and I've just every medium that I could possibly want to use is like at my fingertips and I can move freely around the space, I can sit down if I want to paint at like an easel or a desk or I can stand up and like throw paint around. And that's kind of, I can really get into the feeling of that. So I want you to really sink into your feeling of it.
07:17
But to scale that back, can sometimes feel like block, right? Like you can go "well, I can. That's all well and good to dream about that Keita, but I don't have that. So it's not, it's just not possible for me". But what I want to say is - it is but we've just got to make it fit with your life. And how can you create that same feeling of being in that space. And I've only got myself to use as an example. So I'll use myself, but I don't have a huge space, not as big as like in my dream space. And I certainly did not start off with any big space. But I'm not going to let myself go "I don't have that. So I can't". We're going to take that dream. And we're going to make it fit into these, like main points that I feel are in that image. So one of the main things is that, it was huge, like in my head, that space is absolutely huge. As I said, it's big enough for me to stand and sit and move around. So how can I find that in my space, I need a space that's big enough, not for me to have extra square feet that don't get used, but just big enough for me to sit and stand and paint. As long as I can move around, then it's all good, because that's what I want to create in that space. So in my image, the space is like bright white, everything's white and clear. And I can really see the colors and I can feel light and there's daylight in there and it just feels really light and airy. So something that I could do, which I'm actually in the process of doing and that's what inspired this episode!...
09:07
Is I could paint the walls white instead of having a darker shade, the moment my home studio is like dark brown wood and cream, and I really want that white feeling. So I'm actually in the process of painting my walls and that's Yeah, that's where the inspo for this episode came because I realized I've been working through a lot of these things to get to that ideal. So yeah, I could paint the walls white instead of having them in a darker shade, or I could hang curtains that are light and brighten that would reflect sunlight. I could get a new rug on the floor so that the floors not dark and it just lifts the space and makes it feel like that light space. The third thing I mentioned was windows, I guess light is pretty important to most artists. And especially for me to feel free personally. But maybe yours is like a cozy corner. That's all, you know, dark walls and you sit still at the desk, and you can really get into the detail work that you love to do. So just think about applying this to your creativity, like how do you feel when you are in your most flourishing state of just in the flow and how delicious that feels for you and where you are when you feel like that. Now, as far as light goes, I can't change the size of my windows, they just the windows are the windows in my house, I can't just magic new windows and you know, rip out the ceiling and put windows in. But I can make sure that I set up my space near the window so that I am working in the brightest part of the daylight. So maybe you could think about if you're looking for more light in your space, where is there like a little corner of your house that has really great light that you could maybe set it up there, or how could you move a desk to be near the window so that you get the best light.
11:06
Also, for me in life, I don't always have daytime to paint in. I've got three children at home with me. One (/ two because he's just super interested in learning) is homeschooling. And I don't have much time in the day to sit and paint. It's mostly when it's dark outside. So either first thing on the morning before everybody gets up (it's winter while I'm recording this, so it's really dark for quite a while). And also at bedtime, like after bedtime. That's when I have a lot of creative time. So something that I've done as well that's been helpful is put daylight bulbs in the lamps that I have because it makes it feel light and airy. Again, it makes it it gives me that same feeling of daylight while I'm painting.
11:58
Another part of the vision that I have in my head is like having room to make painty messes. Which I know that's not like what everybody loves. Maybe it is what you love? It's definitely what I love to do, not in all of my creativity. But once I get in the zone of flicking paint around, sometimes I just want to like move it around a lot. And I can't really do that in my space right now like I wouldn't be able to like flick things around. However, I could throw down a drop sheet. Or I could you know, get an old rug or something off of Craigslist and put it under the desk area where I'm planning on painting. And let it get messy and that's okay for that to be like, spattered with paint. And that would create that same feeling of freedom and moving the paint around without having to worry about cleaning up mess, I would be able to get that feeling just by working into the space that I currently have.
12:58
And then one of the other main things that I saw in my, you know, "dream vision" was having wall-to-wall, organized, every color of the rainbow of paint and tools and everything around me. So what I've done is bring that kind of feeling into my office space, but on a smaller scale. So I have all different pots lined up on my desk like just old mason jars mainly. And I've got you know, pencils in one, oil brushes in another water based brushes in another, guash in another pot and on and on. I've got all of these different supplies. And they're right at my hand level. And if you happen to have younger children like toddlers that are going to get into, you know, the paints and stuff, maybe that wouldn't be as practical for you. But you could put up a shelf so that it's out of reach, you know, the bigger they grow, the higher the shelf has to get to get the things up an out of reach for them. So maybe you could do something like that, if that would appeal to you. Or maybe you just need something that's a bit more accessible. Instead of having your paints in a pencil case or closed up in a drawer, you can get to them easily instead of having to like use that first half hour of creative rush to like set up your space, it's already there. All the tools are out and ready to go. And what I really want to encourage you to do is just really think about how you can work these ideals these main points that you dreamt up. In your ideal situation, how can you work them into your lifestyle and into your making practice?
14:47
I didn't start out with a home studio. I started out with laying out newspapers on my kitchen counter and a basket of paints and I would just set it up before bedtime and then once the kids went to bed, I knew that I was going to get to the kitchen counter, it was a little bit higher up because my kids are younger than so it worked pretty well, there was a decent light in there, I would spread the newspapers out, grab my basket, grab a sketchbook, and I could sit and I could get to work straight away, rather than hunting around the house and like getting a sketchbook from one area and a pencil from another and "oh I can't find where my inks gone". And I you know, hunting around the place like that wastes precious time that you could be creating with. So I'd really encourage you to set that up. And whether that is a basket on your kitchen counter, and that's your space, or you have a huge spare room in your house that is full of clutter, maybe you could clear that out and make it an intentional space for you. Or even if it's a corner of your bedroom, I had that for a long time when I found that I had too many art supplies and to be taking up the kitchen counter. That's when I moved a little desk into my bedroom. And I took up half of my closet in my bedroom and it was all art supplies and canvases lined up. So that I could open the door, grab what I needed, sit down and start making in my bedroom. And that room didn't have very good light. So that's when I got daylight bulbs in the lamps. And I just kind of figured it out as I went and I want you to be able to do the same thing. But instead of having to slowly come across these ideas, I want to be able to speed this process up for you by getting you to think about how you can work it out intentionally right now. So that you're not moving things from pillar to post, it just took me a long time to figure out all of these different things. So I want you to be able to get to it quicker, so you can get making quicker.
16:56
So overall, we're using your dream, I want you to go back, just for a second, to sink into that dream, again, that ideal. And it's informing you about what is important for you in an art making space. Where would be the best spot in your house? Where would be the best spot for your family and your life? And how can you scale it down? Just bring it down to where you are right now and incorporate all the elements that were in there, into your space. And just because you don't have a spare $100,000 to create your ideal she-shed sanctuary, doesn't mean that there is any barrier for you creating a perfect space for you to get a little bit painty in, to live into the reason why you want to do it in the first place. It just takes a little bit of thinking outside the box to create as close as you can to that, and to recreate the feeling of that.
17:57
And my last tip would be make it somewhere that you absolutely love to go. Make it feel like a space that's a treat to be in like you just can't wait to go in there. Maybe you can get some candles that you can light while you're working. Maybe you can get a little speaker for your iPhone, or (I don't know why I said iPhone specifically), just play music on. So you set an ambiance and something I really love as well is, I set up an oil diffuser. And that is really nice for me. And I feel like because that smell and memory connection is strong. In all of us I've kind of cultivated this like "studios scent" so whenever I turn that on, whenever I turn that diffuser on, it lets out a certain aroma and it really helps me to feel like "Ah, yes, I'm going to make stuff now". It just helps me to get into that creative space in myself quicker than it would do normally, if I was just sitting down with like, nothing there to make it feel amazing. So what can you do to make it feel comfortable for you? If your room is a bit cold, maybe you want to bring a cozy blanket. And you know, there's like so many things that will make you feel nice in that space and make it feel nice, make it be a place that you want to go in. And then you'll want to go there. Because if you're in the concrete, cold, dingy basement space that you don't like, maybe you do, like maybe that is your dream space. I'm not saying that. But you know, if it's not a space that you like, and you don't feel comfortable in, you're not going to want to go there and then that's going to become a barrier even though you've already done the work to set it up. So make sure that it feels like a space you want to be in and make it into a space that you want to be in.
19:52
Thanks so much for chatting with me today. And I hope this has given you some ideas about how you can set up an art making space for yourself and if you'd like a little bit more help with setting that up and creating the perfect art making space for your lifestyle and your home, I've created a special printable worksheet for you - which is pretty exciting to help you with it!
20:15
So if you want to dig in deeper, you want to really get this done and get moving forward with it. You can find that special worksheet by clicking here and don't forget to tag me on Instagram with a picture of your space when it's all set up and feel free to share this episode with your art making mum friends if you found it useful. Thanks again. Thanks so much for being here and until next time, keep dreaming about art making and a beautiful space for you to live out your best creative painty mama life.
Thanks so much for spending time here with me today and feel free to message me on Instagram to let me know what great ideas have come to you while you've been daydreaming. You can DM me @artbykeita if you enjoyed this podcast, please don't forget to subscribe for more episodes and leave a review as it really helps other Painty Mama's like you to find us. And you can find all things Art By Keita, including the "Banba" goddess painting mentioned in this episode, at keitathomas.com. Until next time, have a dreamy week!
