Where I do my work

Where do I paint? For my art work, I have a studio in a separate part of the house that contains all of my supplies, canvases, finished paintings and where I do a lot of my preparations/finishings (varnishing, gesso-ing, etc).

However, for actual painting, it's the living room. After spending a full-day at the office, when I come home I want to spend time with my wife and puppies. There is no real urge for me to go to my studio and spend the time alone, there. Therefore, so that I paint more often, the actual work of painting is done in my living room. My wife was very generous in allowing me to have a corner of the living room to do this.

As you can see, I've got my glass palette on the side with the brushes and paint tubes, the easel that holds some fairly large paintings, and (NEW!) a still life setup for practicing. In front of the easel is a natural light lamp to illuminate my easel and, behind the easel, is a clip-on lamp to illuminate the still life. Naturally, there's a rug because I've dropped my brushes a couple of times on the floor.

Another huge benefit of having the easel/painting in the living room is guilt. When I am just sitting there, feeling pretty lazy, I look over and see a half-done painting. My mind immediately thinks "If you want to be a full-time successful artist, you have to paint... is watching TV right now going to help you achieve your goal?" Sometime I do need the downtime and not think about art work, but most of the time, I realize, the only way to become a better painter is to paint.