People imagine a studio as a place where paintings are made. Mine is that, of course — but it is also where paintings are waited for. The room sits on the side of the house that catches the morning sun, and by nine o'clock the light has already told me what kind of day it will be.
The studio is organised by mess, honestly. Charcoal and graphite live on the old wooden desk near the window, where the light is raking and honest — dry media need to see every mark they make. Pastels have their own drawer, arranged roughly by warmth, and I can tell the day's mood by which end of the drawer is open.
The wet corner
Watercolour and acrylic keep to the far table, close to the wash basin, because water has opinions and travels. Brushes stand in old steel glasses; the palettes carry the ghost of every painting from the last year, and I never scrub them fully clean — those stains are a diary.
A studio is not a room. It is a habit made visible.
A working day begins with the sketchbook, never the canvas. By late morning I am on whatever piece is current — a commissioned portrait, a study for class. Afternoons belong to students when a batch is running, and the room rearranges itself for them: easels out, elbow room, the good light shared fairly.
In the evening the light goes amber and the room shows me everything I got wrong — which is exactly why I keep the easel where it is. A studio should flatter you in the morning and tell you the truth at five o'clock.
None of it is grand. It is a room that has learned my routine the way a good tool learns a hand. The work happens here because the habit happens here, and the habit happens here because, years ago, I claimed one corner of one room and refused to give it back.
