Come inside my painting studio, a light-filled little garden room in our home in Redland Bay, Queensland. This is where almost all my paintings begin, usually with brushes everywhere, a forgotten cup of tea going cold somewhere nearby, and Dottie the Labrador as my constant companion, offering moral support and constant distractions.
A Painter's Garden Studio
The windows look straight into the cottage garden and the french doors open onto the alfresco to the pool, giving it an indoors outdoors feeling. Light shifts across the room throughout the day, birds carry on outside, and there is usually something flowering that eventually finds its way into a sketch or painting.
We have planted tall citrus trees along our fence to screen the neighbour's house. Otherwise, our home is surrounded by nature reserve along Moogoorapum Creek. I love that sense of being tucked away without being shut away.
Creating a garden right outside the studio was a must. I need the movement of birds and trees to catch my eye and make me look up from what I am doing. Otherwise, I get hyperfocused on painting, like a horse with blinkers on, and won't look up until I am hungry.
I honestly find having a furry studio companion helpful for making me step back from my work too. Dottie is invariably standing on the wrong side of the French doors, which provides a fairly reliable reason to walk to the other side of the room.
It is my little oasis, a place to escape, slow down and get lost in the joy of creating. There is something incredibly meditative about settling into the rhythm of painting while being close to nature, with birdsong and the breeze filtering in.
A Home Art Studio Built for Painting
When we built our home, I knew exactly what I wanted from a home art studio: plenty of natural light, big windows looking into the garden and, very importantly, floors that wouldn't object to the occasional attack of oil paint. It isn't an immaculate showroom. It's a working artist's space, full of paintings, colour charts, collected treasures and all the useful clutter of an artistic life.
Setting Up a Painting Studio
What I've Learnt...
1. Choose forgiving floors.
If you're building or renovating, consider vinyl floors. They're cost-effective, easy to clean and considerably reduce the emotional fallout when you inevitably spill something. If replacing the flooring isn't an option, invest in wipeable mats or, at the very least, a drop cloth. You will notice I have not been this sensible. I regret it. I'm always a Better Bec in my head.
2. Get the natural light right.
I prefer working in natural light rather than under specialised studio lamps. In the Southern Hemisphere, positioning your easel side-on to a south-facing window gives you soft, fairly stable indirect light; in the Northern Hemisphere, use a north-facing window. A skylight earns bonus points for lovely overhead light. Avoid working with the window directly behind you or putting the canvas in direct sun, as glare and strong shadows can distort your values.
My windows face North and West, so not ideal, but a view of the garden was paramount for me. In winter, I love using sunlight to create shadows across a still life, but when I don't want those colour shifts and harsh shadows I filter the light with a sheer white curtain. A white bedsheet would work just as well. Having two windows also means I can move my easel as the light changes throughout the day.
3. Keep your palette in the same light.
Your palette needs to sit in roughly the same amount and quality of light as your canvas. Otherwise, it is surprisingly easy to misjudge your tones and colours while mixing paint.
4. Have a plan for gloomy days.
For overcast days or painting into the evening, I have a 5000K daylight globe in the ceiling light. I am not a photorealist, so this is accurate enough for the way I work. If precise colour matching is important to your painting style, dedicated daylight studio lamps are worth investigating.
5. Keep surrounding colours white or neutral.
Anything light reflects from can influence the colours you see in your painting, so I painted the room and wardrobes in matte Dulux Natural White. It is a soft, slightly warm neutral. Dulux Vivid White is purer, but I found it a little clinical for an everyday working room. I still wanted the studio to feel cosy.
6. Give yourself something to look at besides the canvas.
My windows face the garden, which gives my eyes somewhere else to go when I need to step back from a painting. The trees, birds and whatever Dottie is demanding on the other side of the French doors are useful reminders to stop staring at the same three square inches of canvas for hours.
How I Organise My Painting Studio
If you've ever wondered how an artist organises her studio, my answer is somewhere between practical systems and aesthetically pleasing places to hide the chaos. I'd love to tell you my painting studio runs with military precision. Alas, it does not. But over the years I've learnt that a studio needs to make the act of just starting as easy as possible. Paints and brushes stay within reach, works in progress remain visible, and the things I use constantly earn the easiest spots.
I have also learnt that I do not enjoy being surrounded by plastic storage containers and solutions from Kmart or IKEA. I want to feel like Beatrix Potter in her rustic Edwardian kitchen studio. To this end, I have turned my magpie-like tendencies to collecting baskets, tins, trays, jars and vessels of varying shapes and sizes.
It is a little more fiddly to find the perfect A4-sized container than it would be at Officeworks, but I adore the worn feel of my grandpa's old tan leather briefcase, even though I am sure his gentlemanly businessman spirit would be rolling in his grave to know it now houses my oil pastels.
Vintage Art Studio-Inspired Storage Ideas
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Brushes live in a mix of old jars, silver sugar pots and vases. I find this is the perfect place for that vase you couldn't leave at Vinnies but, in your heart, you knew she was a little tizzy.
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My paint tubes live in a rustic burgundy $5 second-hand tin toolbox.
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Old biscuit tins are perfect for pencils, pastels and all the itty-bitty things you need as an artist. Mine are separated into a plethora of tins. My chaotic mind finds that once everything has its place, it is much easier to stay organised.
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Kitchen hutches often go for a steal on Marketplace. Mine came from my elderly neighbour, and after painting it white, it now stores solvents and mediums, travel art supplies and the flotsam of materials I don't use every day in the cupboards at the bottom. And beautiful ‘artist aesthetic’ studio paraphernalia and still life fabrics and artefacts in the top.
The art supplies I do use every day are out in force on the desk and in the old drinks trolley from my uncle's house. Trolleys are invaluable in art studios. Wheels on everything, including easels, chairs and even my desk, mean I can move about on a whim, whether I'm painting watercolours by the window or working on an enormous landscape painting covering most of the floor.
Joel, always a handy chap, has built me a little gallery wall for finished works, works in progress and those pieces I have had a difference of opinion with. It was simple to build: he fixed timber into the studs and finished it with a raised skirting piece so I can lean canvases against it, with round pegs above for hanging larger works. An all-round solution.
Creating My Art Studio Aesthetic
Although the studio itself is fairly new, I seem incapable of keeping anything looking too new for long. A symptom of being both a klutz and a bowerbird. Old artworks, second-hand finds and well-used materials gradually soften the room, giving it more of the layered feeling of a vintage art studio than a pristine new workspace.
One of my favourite things about my studio is the collection of colour charts that adorn the walls from a summer school with British Colourist painter Hugo Grenville. They've become a huge part of my creative process. Whether I'm in the mood for bold jewel tones or soft, calming pastels, those charts often give me the spark I need to begin a new piece. They remind me of the endless possibilities of colour and how a single hue can completely change the mood of a room or painting.
They're useful, certainly, but I also love the art studio aesthetic they create. I'm much happier surrounded by the kaleidoscopic evidence of creativity than by perfectly styled walls.
I have also created a large colour chart documenting all of my oil paints so I can make more informed decisions while painting and remember which brand and shade to buy again. Yellow ochre is a shade I've found particularly tricky when searching for a favourite. The only suboptimal oil colour I've had from Langridge oil paints; it has a bizarre, grainy texture. Old Holland is a usual favourite, but even their yellow ochre feels stiff and lifeless to me. I have a shocking memory and often get overexcited in art stores, so having the comparison in front of me and in my phone photos saves a lot of guesswork.
To make the chart, I found some discarded cardboard and gessoed it three times. I gridded it up and added a swatch of thinned paint, thick paint and then the colour mixed with increasing amounts of white so I could see how it changed. I also record the brand, hue name, pigments used, transparency, lightfastness and series. If I wouldn't buy it again, I pop a little cross beside it.
A Studio Built Around an Artistic Life
One of the things I love most about having a studio at home is that making art doesn't have to feel separate from ordinary life. I can wander out after breakfast to adjust something on a painting, return after lunch when the light has changed, or nip outside to cut a branch from the garden because I've suddenly decided it belongs in a still life.
That is probably my favourite version of the artist lifestyle. Not fevered bouts of inspiration at midnight, but creativity woven quietly through the day. Gardening, looking, painting, reading, making tea and pottering around the studio doing admin.
I keep previous paintings and the work of other artists around the studio too, partly because I like living with them and partly because, during a stagnant painting session, they're reassuring evidence that paintings usually end well if you leave them alone for a while and come back.
A creative space to help my artistic process
Mixed among the art are life drawings from classes I've taken with my mum and sister in West End, including one of my Francesca's paintings made over an old sheet of music. I love having other people's work in the room. It reminds me there are always other ways of seeing. The quick life drawings encourage me to loosen up.
If you're stuck in a creative rut, I cannot recommend a life drawing class highly enough. The human form is endlessly fascinating and infuriatingly difficult to draw, which is precisely why it's so useful.
Strangely, it also feels quite low-stakes. You're there to look, sketch and practise rather than produce a masterpiece. Every class I've attended has been wonderfully encouraging, with people of all different skill levels still oohing and aahing over everyone else's work.
Sometimes the best thing you can do for your creativity is make something that isn't trying to become anything. Just play. The things I keep in my studio remind me of this when the line between creativity and making a living begins to blur.
Paintings Made in the Studio
So this is the room behind the paintings: part workspace, part retreat, total dog lounge, and very rarely as tidy as these photographs might suggest.
I hope this little home artist studio tour has given you a glimpse into both the practical and slightly rambling sides of my artistic life, and perhaps a little artist studio inspiration for your own creative corner.
Here’s to artful days and cozy nights,
Bec xx
See What I've Been Painting
If you'd like to see what has been coming off the easel lately, you can explore my collection of original paintings, all created here in my little garden studio in Queensland.
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