As I've mentioned on social media and in prior posts, I've been in the throes of trying to convert my "storage unit" back into a studio. It has been interesting, challenging, annoying, and an adventure!

Part of what makes this situation so interesting is finding all the cool things I've bought over the years...you know what I mean, all those have-to-have-it-right-now-art-supplies because you took a class or saw a demo online. The problem with this is I've already moved on to the next-new-thing-bright-thing or life interfered and I didn't have time so I set them aside. Out of sight, out of mind! 

The challenge to finding all these fun toys is you want to stop and play with them RIGHT NOW. But if you do that, you don't get anything done in the studio. Well, you might. I don't. So I have to rein myself in and keep me on task. Much grumbling can be heard from outside the door.

Other challenges include figuring out ways to organize and store all the goodies in a way I can find them when I want them without having to dismantle half the studio to get to them. When I go looking for ideas out on the internet, I often find "pretty pictures" of magazine-cover-worthy studios. They're all color coordinated and every.single.thing.has.a.basket. They're gorgeous. But I cannot help and wonder about the function. 

While I like pretty things, what I like/want/need most is a studio that is going to function for me and the way I work. If a solution isn't exactly pretty, but works like a charm, count me in! If it's pretty, but is a pain to use...it's not going to last long. This has turned out to be a daily, ongoing challenge with the storage unit/studio and probably always will be. 

Did I mention annoying? Yes. I did. 

So you might be wondering what could be so annoying about cleaning up the studio...oh, let me count the ways! There's the annoyance of discovering you have seven rolls of certain kind of tape because you couldn't lay hands on the rolls you'd bought in the past and thought maybe you had imagined buying them. There is also the "what-was-I-thinking" purchases that make absolutely no sense at this stage. In some cases, I don't even know what project I had in mind!

But I think the biggest annoyance, or maybe I should say the one that is bugging me most today, is finding a piece of artwork I thought was finished, and finding it's not done. At least, it's not now because I've grown as an artist and when I look at it, I see ways to improve it. Then the debate begins: do I fix it or do I put it in the drawer with other completed works and go on with organizing the studio. The key thought here is, "I'll come back to it when the studio is finished." The problem with that thought is the studio is not likely to ever be finished!

Much time is spent considering what the right thing to do might be. Finally, in the case of the Easter eggs, I decided it would be worth it, mostly due to the timing of the holiday, to take time away from cleaning and organizing to make the changes. Another reason I decided to go for it is because I had set the piece to the side and I bet I've come across it three, maybe four times now and had the same debate with myself. Make a decision, would you?!

So...ta-da! I sat down last Sunday (which has become known as "Studio Sundays" and is always said in a deep, masculine voice from the Monday night football games on national television) and worked to finish this piece. It took a little over an hour as I stopped several times to make sure I was liking the changes. After I felt it was finished, I scanned it and then filed with the rest of my completed pieces. 

From there, I added the finished artwork to my Zazzle shop, Painted Thoughts Studio, as a greeting card and showed it on social media. So despite the delay of working on the studio, I managed to get at least one thing finished and added to Zazzle so it could live on outside of the studio! Not too bad for a few hours time.

Now, onto the next 394 million pieces of paper that need to be sorted, organized, stored and/or finished!