Since moving into this home almost 10 years ago, the room I’ve done my creating in has changed a few times. I share a separate building with my husband’s post production company, which is where I do my order processing and shipping from, but have a second “office/studio” where the art and writing happens. That room became a nursery for a while and I moved to another room, but we’ve just shuffled everything around again and I’ve moved back. It’s a cosy room with better light than where I’d been, and I’m excited to be in this space again, and to turn it into a lovely area for super productive creativity!
Here it is. It’s simple, but has everything I need: storage, an art table, a computer desk, light. And picture rails, that are waiting for me to get some new frames to put some work up on that blank wall there.

And the bed? It’s the top half of my daughter’s bunk bed which we built in the room, and discovered wouldn’t fit out the door again. We could have disassembled it, but left it in the “later” basket. Of course, the cats think we’ve left it there just for them. What studio isn’t complete without a dedicated cat lounging area?
You can play “spot the living animal” in the photo below. One is a cat, one is my Fennec Fox mascot (Fenech and Fennec are pronounced the same way, and they are the cutest animals ever, so I had to have one).
Also in this photo- two matching OttLite daylight lamps for even more light, and my trusty old Microtek A3 size scanner for scanning artworks.

The computer desk! This is a standing desk, which means I can wind the handle to raise it to standing height so I’m not always sitting down. Honestly, I mostly use it sitting, but when I do get motivated and wind it up (mostly when digital painting or outlining colouring pages), I feel SO much better. Otherwise it’s just the basics over here. In-trays to keep work sorted, water, notes, and a Wacom Cintiq for digital art. I like having a wall beside me, and am planning on sticking post-its all over it next time I’m planning a novel.

I’ve created a little pretty things nook in this room. It has some of the figurines based on my art, and other favourite things that make me happy and inspire me. Some of those books are over two-hundred years old (which may not be very impressive to those in “older” countries, but in Australia it’s hard to come by beautiful old books).

And of course, the art desk. I’ve labelled this photo as much as possible to show how I’ve sorted my art supplies. I did a lot of experimenting over the last couple of years, trying oils for the first time, trying canvases and panel and different mediums and surfaces. After all that I’ve got a much better understanding of what I like and don’t like, what works for me and doesn’t. I’m excited to get started painting again more regularly with that knowledge behind me.

UPDATE!

So after about a year in the room, I got tired of having the bed in the space and it was never used except for by the cats. So after a bit more shuffling around, the current studio set up is looking like this-