A Room of One's Own

Yesterday on social media I posted the video of my long-awaited studio completion. If you weren't tuned in to that, I'm including it below. Today I'm also sharing a few more photos and some details because I'm really excited to finally have a permanent home to create my work.

Yes, the garage-to-studio is complete! Hurrah! 😄 I feel as if I have been moving for nearly two years, because, well, I have. So just the very thought of not having to shuffle my supplies and equipment from one place to the other is a most delicious concept to me.

It doesn't have the cottage charm of my former studio,  but it's open and airy and has North light and storage, so I feel like I'm in luxury any way. Here are the bins we had built:

We built them "up" to keep the work off of the floor, even making use of the space over the water heater. 

I'm using the same hanging system for hanging art as I did in the last studio, using picture rail and a hook and rod system from Walker Display. But my favorite feature is the shelving that runs along the perimeter of the space. 

This came about because I had a strange cinder block bump-out that ran along the walls of the garage, and the carpenter suggested capping this off with some shelving where I could perch works-in-progress, wet paintings, or other unframed art. He also ran this same shelving over the doors and windows I had framed in, in place of the the old garage doors. 

This space is just slightly east of due north studio lighting. But as you can see, when the sun goes down I still need supplemental lighting. For that I have installed Daylight LED tube lights and tracks. At some point I may install a couple of additional short tracks over my framing and auxiliary painting area, but I have enough to get me up and running. 

In keeping with tradition, I maintain my usual impeccable timing, and have completed the studio just in time to leave for two weeks on a plein air painting trip to Maine for an artist's residency. So, as excited as I am for my new space, it will have to wait to get junked up until I return! 😉  Meanwhile, God and internet willing, I hope to blog from the road during my travels. 

Upcoming show, demo, and more

Too many irons in the fire makes Jen a lame blogger. However, I hope you'll still welcome this post and the news I have to share. First off, I announced some of this in my last newsletter, but if you don't subscribe to that, I'm pleased to announce that I have been invited to be the Featured Artist at Cabell Gallery in Lexington, Virginia. The gallery will hold an opening reception from 5:00 - 7:30 PM, this Friday, June 2nd. I will be in attendance, and it would be so, so great to see some friendly faces there. Here is one of the new pieces I just brought down there for the show:

"The Nubians", Oil on linen, 16x12" ©Jennifer E Young

If I happen to miss you at the art opening on Friday, I'll also be painting alongside other Gallery Flux artists on Sunday during the Rassawek Spring Jubilee at Rassawek Vineyards. I painted with Gallery Flux during this event last year and it was loads of fun. They'll have music, food, a variety of demonstrations from animals to art, and of course, wine! The event runs throughout the weekend, but I will be there on Sunday, June 4th, at 11 a.m. Here are a couple of pieces I did at last year's event. Come by and see them at the Gallery Flux display, plus whatever else I create at the event this year.

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"Lakeside at Rassawek"

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"Spring Jubilee, Rassawek Vineyard"

Lastly, the garage conversion is done and I am finally moving into my permanent studio space. It's been quite a process and I admit pretty stressful trying to get ready for a show with no real studio space to work in, but Hallelujah! It's all a thing of the past now. I did not post progress pictures as promised because I was too overwhelmed with everything that's been going on, but I'll have some images of the final space to share by next week if not before.

Last Light on the Orchard

We are in mid-construction here trying to convert the garage to my new studio space, so I am staying close by and working in the studio, as time and interruptions permit. I am preparing for a June show at the Cabell Gallery in Lexington, Virginia as well, which is proving a challenge in my chaotic state. Nonetheless, I'm  having a bit of fun mining my photos from various plein air trips I have made to the mountains in last few years.

One most memorable trip was a beautiful long weekend trek I made solo to Crozet, Virginia. I stayed in a sweet little country cabin and explored the area with my paint kit. The orchards and wildflowers were blooming and I was in heaven. The plein air pieces I did during that trip have long since sold but through my reference photos and photos of the work I did there I developed this large studio piece:

"Last Light on the Orchard", Oil on linen, 24x36" ©Jennifer E Young

A few years ago I had worked out a 30x40" painting of this same scene, but I really wanted to try this again now that my style and color sense has evolved. I rather prefer the 24x36" format to accentuate those long slivers of sunlight that are spilling across the mountains and the grass, righ before the sun takes its leave for the day.

Intertwined

Mother nature surprises again! By the 2nd week of February we were head-on into spring. The robins were back at least a month early, the fruit trees had all started blooming, and temperatures went has high as the low eighties. Now here we are in the "Ides of March" and in comes the ice and freezing rain, school closings, and the reintroduction of turtleneck sweaters.

I did manage to get down to the river a couple of times during that February thaw, though in both instances I came away with nothing but wipers. However, those "failures" provided fuel for the studio piece below, so all was not lost.  

"Intertwined", Oil on linen, 16x20" Jennifer E Young

There still wasn't much color in the landscape when I was working on this piece, though the river and sky provided a nice cool counterbalance to the warmth of the earth toned trees in the foreground. As for the drawing and the overall light in the painting I would say this studio piece achieved a level of success and finish that the plein air pieces didn't. Still it was the plein air experience that helped to inform that light and shadow, so in that sense those exercises were essential. 

Speaking of studio work, I am doing just that...working on my new studio space! :-) After a lot of soul searching and agonizing over our budget, we decided to table the idea of building a separate studio on our property. Instead I will be taking over our 20x20' attached garage and installing some doors and windows where our garage doors sit currently. I'll keep my office in an adjacent room in the house, so the garage will be dedicated to just the art studio. I actually think this arrangement will be quite helpful in that when I enter my art space there wont be the distraction of my email and computer.  This setup won't be as fancy as the last studio I had, but I think it will function just fine for my purposes, and will be a far sight better than the tiny dark room I have been painting in for the past 5 or 6 months. 

Unfortunately the garage had kind of become the catch-all for overflow storage items, so it's going to take some time to sort through and clear out everything and make some kind of order and dedicated workspace. But in spite of the storm, the windows were installed yesterday and the doors are scheduled to be installed today! This will be followed by electrical, heat, and a bit of carpentry and painting to finish things off. Hopefully by May I'll be fully in, and oh what a happy day that will be. I will be sure to post some updates as things progress.

Changing spaces (again)

I mentioned in one of my recent posts that we are in the planning stages with a builder to build a new studio at our new residence. It's coming along-- I'm excited! 😃  But given that we are just in the permit stage, I know enough about building an art studio to know that it will be a while yet before that dream becomes a reality.  Meanwhile, it will be important to save some money to help pay for the new digs. Sooo, I'm giving up my rental space and yet again, moving my studio. 

This time I will attempt to work once more in the house. I feel like we have rearranged our house so many times in the year that we have lived here, that it's comical. So what's one or two times more, in the scheme of things? The room I've cleared out for my little temporary studio has been a catch-all room; a mud room, a temporary guest bedroom, and eventually it will be my office.  It has a door that leads to the back screened porch and faces the site of the future studio. It sits a bit away from the rest of the house, and is just down the hallway from the garage. So in some ways,  the location is ideal for a little painting space.  

What's not ideal though, at ALL, is the lighting. This room is very, very dark, which is why I never thought to use it previously for a home studio. What's changed since we moved to Ashland though,  is the easel light, shown below (installed on my Sorg easel, with an unfinished painting.) 

The light is one by Revelite, which I learned of from seeing postings raving about it in several of my friends' Facebook feeds. Revelite makes traditional picture lights for lighting artwork, but also these work lights designed to work with artist's easels. They are slim profile, adjustable LED bulbs, with a high color rendering (CRI), purportedly, of over 90. 

I purchased the 36" light. I will admit I was sweating bullets when I ordered this thing because while I was "pretty sure" this light would work with my easel, I still harassed Revelite's customer service for a few weeks with a barrage of inquisitive emails.  It was, after all, a very expensive light. And it carried a hefty restocking fee in the event it needed to be returned.  Luckily, though, the light mounted to my easel without an issue, and I am really pleased with the quality of the light it provides to my painting surface. 

Above is my new home-based  temporary studio! Although I still think I need more light for the room, at least I have lit the most important parts of my workspace in order to get the job done.  I've lit the palette area with a standing Ott-lite for now, but as you can see this is a very cold, bluish light compared to the warmer but still very clean easel light (which I prefer.) I am still working on a better solution to this problem, because putting different lighting on my painting and palette will likely be problematic. 

If this little space is looking quite neat, it's because the rest of my supplies (frames, equipment, paintings, etc) are stashed in a million different places throughout my house,  with even more still at the rental space. All of that stuff will need to be moved out and consolidated and organized by the end of August, so aside from painting and splashing in the water with the kiddo, you can guess how I will be spending a good part of the rest of my summer!