My "Studio," Before and After

Things get a little "untidy" around here when I'm finishing up a big project. The two pieces and all the "stuff" are from illustrations for An Apple Pie for Dinner by Susan VanHecke. Actually the "before" picture looks better than it might, as there's about a square foot of table there with nothing on it -- rare that you can see any actual table when I'm working frantically. The really sad thing is I do have a studio space upstairs, but it's always such a disaster before I even reach the halfway point of a book that I have to branch out to my favorite spot, which just is the kitchen table. Much closer to the chocolate supply.

Guess how I got the table so clean? Yep, that's right. I just threw everything in a box and carted it upstairs where it's still sitting, waiting for me to sort it all out. Soon.

See the "trays" holding illustrations? I made those for this book, one per page, from foamcore scraps left over from my last book. Best organizational strategy I've used yet. They were perfect for holding all the little bits in progress, they stacked easily, and were light and easy to tote from place to place. I also put together a binder "Bible" that held a couple copies of my dummy and all my checklists, notes, and reminders (I think it was on the chair, just out of view). I promise to show all this organizational stuff better in another post soon. Oh, and see the little wax paper bag taped to the edge of the table? After battling zillions of little thread scraps around the sewing machine and little scraps of paper and smidges of clay everywhere else, I suddenly remembered that my junior high sewing teacher used to make us tape waxed paper lunch bags to our workstations to corral all the snippets. And I had this box of pretty little waxed bags I bought one day in a fit of nostalgia and "green" urges, but which my kids totally rejected as uncool, plus no good at keeping their sandwiches from going stale. So I taped up little bags everywhere I worked, and voila! No more scraps all over the floor! Well, fewer scraps...

One thing that was constant between both scenes (even though you can't see outside in the upper photo) was RAIN! I cannot believe how much it has rained this year in Pittsburgh. Pretty much every weekend. Plus lots of the week days. And naturally it' s raining here for the 4th, and supposed to keep it up Saturday and Sunday too. Sigh. I miss the sunshine we had on vacation.