Chaos - the clear-up continues

Yes, I know I wrote the original 'Chaos' post in June (see it here), but the tidying of the studio is still a work in progress. I have been worryingly tidy/clean around the house this weekend though, prompting my long-suffering boyfriend to say "Who are you and what have you done with Jen?". Various surfaces (including tops of wardrobes and such) have been tidied and dusted to make room for copious amounts of storage and festive paraphernalia. I have also rearranged my studio storage, putting my paintings in a space rather more accessible than the previous stacked boxes on top of shelves arrangement. (I am yet to have a sale in my shop of paintings, so this need for organisation of paintings is purely theoretical. It's good to be prepared, nonetheless.) There's also a lot more floor space in which to manoeuvre now, which is good, as I am rather clumsy.

No, you can't see photos of the relative tidiness, it's not quite that nice yet. So here is a photo of our Christmas tree instead:

An unlikely source of inspiration

A few days ago I took inspiration from an unlikely source - a Wallace & Gromit poster on my wall.



Much as I love them, they've never inspired me to paint before, but looking at the background of that image I had an idea.



I'd been looking for something different to paint, something other than the trees and sunsets. So this simple landscape was a solution to that.



It's not a huge departure from my usual style, but it's something a little different. And it's inspired quite a few works in progress.



As has this sketchbook piece, painted a few days before, which was also an attempt to do something different (this attempt to do something different still ended up in painting trees though, lol).





I'm now newly inspired to paint, after a bit of a dry spell. Which is no bad thing.

Chaos

A couple of days ago, I received a message on Flickr from someone called aniuszka. As she said to me,

"hello,

my name is ania and i´m doing a research about chaos on the desk. i would describe myself as a very messy and chaotic person. in my diploma work i´m dealing with the topic how to handle chaos in an effective way, but without getting neat.
i saw your chaotic desk picture on flickr and would like to ask you for help. i would be very happy you could answer me these quetions. it would help me a lot!"

At first I wasn't sure how to take this. Does my workspace look that chaotic? Well, yes, of course it does :) I'm glad she contacted me, because it is a subject that interests me. As a very messy person, I am fascinated by tidy people's homes, and how on earth they keep it that way. Tidy people, however, aren't hoarders like me. I can't throw anything away! As a result of this, I am frequently looking for things and just not finding them. This is of course the worst place to be in a workspace. Anyway, he's her questions and my answers:

1. is your chaos a problem for you or do you handle it well?

Most of the time it is a problem to be honest! Although I like to think that creativity is born from chaos, I imagine the opposite is often true. I don't believe in all the rules of Feng Shui, but I do believe in the basic idea that energy can flow better when there is less clutter. To look at mess can be quite stressful and claustrophobic. If my home was tidier, I know I would be a calmer person.

2. why does your chaos break out?

The simple fact that I own way too much stuff! I'm a hoarder, and, like most people who hoard things, I'm always thinking that all this stuff could be used for something. Being creative doesn't help there - I'm always thinking I could make something from it all. I try to live by a waste not want not philosophy, but that just means that some of my studio resembles a landfill! It's not that the chaos breaks out, it's more like it never gets reined in.

3. is there something you always know where it is, something you´re never searching for? and is there something you´re always looking for? if yes why?

Yes to both. The items that I use the most are always where I can find them. For example, I keep my paints and brushes on my sideboard, and my beads in a box under the window, right next to where I use those things. Other items also have their place and they always get put back there. However, it often seems hard to find those items that I don't use so much. The solution, of course, would be to have a place for everything, rather than just a place for some things.

4. how do you find the things you´re looking for? have you got any strategies or methods? or do you know any alternative search-for-method?

I agree with the saying "A place for everything and everything in its place." even if I don't yet follow that philosophy. That would be the best method, as I wouldn't have to search for things at all. At the moment though, the best way to find something seems to be retracing my steps. Where was I when I last used the thing? Where might I have stored it last time I tidied?

5. could you imagine something that helps you finding what you´re searching for?

The aforementioned "place for everything" philosophy would be the most help to me.

So I have been inspired to organise my studio. It's a long overdue task.

The Escape

For the past few days, I've been working on a painting called "The Escape", so called because it depicts a tree escaping from its frame. I'd bought a second-hand frame I bought from a charity shop, and took a while deciding what to do with it. I remembered an idea I'd had for continuing a painting onto its frame, so I made a start:

First I sanded the varnish off the frame:



Then added some woodstain:



After adding a thin coat of blue woodstain, I painted some branches onto the green, using glass outliner:



After painting the piece to go inside this frame:



I then added a trunk onto the green, using glass outliner, and painted a coppery brown within the outliner:



After that I felt that it perhaps needed more blue, to balance out the inside, so I tried a couple of things:



In the end, however, I decided not to add birds or butterflies.

To finish the piece I wrapped some copper wire around the frame to hang it from. The curves and colours of the copper I feel compliment the glass outliner on the frame:



This piece is for sale here on DaWanda.