Studio construction

Hi everyone. Hope your paintings are going as envisioned! I need some help in getting info regarding building a new studio. I can't seem to locate any written material on the topic- any leads? Do any of you have good/bad experiences in building a studio? Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome and apppreciated! Thanks- Tim Chambers (FT PRO, e-mail: [email protected] )

Also need help in constructing a studio in the attic? Do you know how to estimate how much natural light is needed? Or how to place skylights or windows? How do you measure the light direction?

[Chris Saper]

Oh, studio construction! Timothy, I think we have touched base on this in the past. I have done exhaustive and completely unproductive research on the topic...and am in the process of designing a build-to-specs studio, with relatively few limitations.

Here is where my thoughts are as of today:

North light...it only matters if you have all day to paint. The purpose of north light has always been to maximize consistency of light, with regard to its color, direction and intensity over the greatest amount of hours. So it has relative importance depending upon on how and when you work. For example, I am an early painter. I go to the easel immediately after my kids leave (8:00ish am) and work til about 2 or 3 in the afternoon. For me a western exposure would provide almost the same benefits as a northern exposure for others, since I typically put down my brush before the sun has crested over the roofline. However if you paint from late morning until sunset, you would absolutely need a different directional orientation.

Flooring. I suppose this is personal choice, but I am personally looking for a synthetic cushioned flooring, wipable, and easy on the arches.

Stuff. I think that everything that can be movable should be put on casters....filing cabinets, easels, bookshelves, taborets.

My new studio will have northern and western exposures. However on the West, the mountain rises immediately beyond the structure, and will never have permit sunlight exposure.

Light control. In either going with the flow of light or in fighting it, I think that the thing to seek in windows is directional control. They should extend vertically as much as possible. They also should have blinds that you can manage. If you are fighting direct sunlight, they need to be vertical blinds, so that you can paint with some degree of illumination, but still angle out the direct light. If you don't have to fight direct light, I think you need to have vertical control...most shades and blinds can be mounted upside down, so that when you close them they are pulled upward from the bottom.

Lighting. As many banks of color corrected tubes as needed, to let you see accurately after dark. This is also a point of conroversy, as many painters feel that you should paint in the type of light the painting will be viewed in. You need to decide if this is how you want to cant your canvas color.I continue to paint with the notion the natural daylight color is the best overall light.

Wall color. Also very personal. I like a temperature-neutral off white. However I will tell you that I have heard of school studios being painted what we fondly refer to as "Leffel green" a grayed down green, somewhere around a middle to dark-middle value.

Options. Eyehooks or rings from which you can hang backdrops. A model stand or taboret built to house a flat file underneath. A file cabinet of proper height to serve as a still ife box-stand. I will post additional thoughts as they occur...and would love to hear yours.

Chris

p.s. Alley space. Very important. The amount of backing up space you need depends upon the scale in which you paint...but you need a clear runway behind your painting postiion to view the work. If you paint 16 x 20 you need much less space than someone whose work is typically 30 x 40.Again a personal decision. I have an artist friend whosse studio was too short let her get proper viewing range...she repositioned her easel so that she could walk outside and look throught the window to get the perspective she needed. (Not a good idea of course, for designing your attic space.Instead try a reducing mirror.)

[Jim Riley]

Timothy,

You are receiving excellent considerations and advice for you studio and I would only add that you may wish to consider options to eliminate all outside light in the event that you may wish at times to use artificial light for daytime and evening work. I say this because I found that even north light varies throughout the day and season to season (not to mention snow and dark rainy days). You may also want to have a mirrored wall behind you to check your work/subject in reverse and to allow sitters to watch your progress. Don't forget storage (verticle and flat) for canvas, paper, paints and brushes.

[Steven Sweeney]

Another "studio" consideration is to work out in advance what you're going to do with volatile waste -- the leftover paints, oils, turpentine and mineral spirits. None of that should ever be washed down the sink -- you unconscionably contaminate the environment and you risk turning your household plumbing into an explosive bomb. Oily or solvent-soaked rags should not be allowed to long accumulate in a trash bin. (There are special bins available for the temporary storage of such waste. They have foot-activated, tight-fitting lids.) Get in the habit of removing the waste daily (even from the fire bins). (Obviously, watercolourists are generally exempt from this chore.) Not only is there a fire hazard from spontaneous combustion, but the slow release of the toxic materials back into the studio atmosphere will start pickling your brain even before it begins to kill you. Have good ventilation year round -- sometimes problematic in frigid northern climes, but no less essential.

[Steven Sweeney]

Lighting . . .

If you have ten reference books on the shelf, you'll find at least eight different variations on "essential" lighting. You're going to have to try different things, to capture or create the effects that you're after, given your unique location and the physical make-up of your space. As has been said, if you rely on that venerable light source, Old Sol, and if you're not doing 15-minute oil sketches, you'll not want the sunlight streaming directly into a window. In a studio I worked in for several years, all life drawing was done in the mornings, the models illuminated solely by north light admitted through a skylight and reflective shaft which was, I was told, based on a da Vinci design. But even Leonardo couldn't do anything about the fact that 9 a.m. light is quite different from noon light, and February's even from April's. That being said, there are painters who love the challenge and the opportunity to work with nature's changing palette. Unquestionably there is a special quality to natural light that is hard to duplicate artificially. (I began painting when living in the southern hemisphere, so I had to read all my reference books upside down to make sense of all this "north light" stuff.)

But the fact is, many artists have to or choose to work at times and in conditions in which natural light is unavailable or unreliable. I happen to like to paint in the evening, sometimes, and on rainy days (and Mondays). Then you get into the choices and debates about artificial lighting. Incandescent lights will produce a colour temperature different from fluorescent (warm and cool, respectively). Some respected artists use a combination of the types. [It's suggested that this provides "balance", but my intuition is that it provides "confusion", having both cool and warm lighting in both the lights and darks of your subject. I may be wrong.] The "color corrected" lighting systems are happily used by some, disliked by others. I've used a variety of shop lights, work lights (including a powerful lamp used by interior house painters, to get a uniform lighting on all surfaces in the room), and polarizing lights (I generally haven't liked these, but I'm not settled on it, yet.) I hang fabrics and clamp cardboard all around the set to direct or block light as I wish. Perhaps my most successful still-life to date was done with a garden-variety parabolic aluminum shop light, clamped to a sort of "hat rack" structure, with a 200W bulb -- BUT . . . with a 15" square of lightweight gold felt hanging in front of it, an irregular hole cut in the center of the felt to cast the strongest, cleanest light on the center of focus in the set-up (a Chinese porcelain vase), the rest of the set-up bathed in a low-intensity, diffuse gold. The painting was very difficult to execute but the results were extremely satisfying and the quick sale of the painting a bittersweet moment. I just made the lighting up as I stood there. It didn't come from any book (and I'm sure it wouldn't be approved of by most purists.)

You asked about detecting light direction. I'm not quite sure I understand the inquiry, but in any event, set the end of a brush handle or mahl stick down on top of a surface near your subject -- the cast shadow is opposite the light source. (If there is no cast shadow, then you've got more ambient than directional lighting, which is okay if you can manage it but it'll greatly diminish the extension of values on your subject.)

Experiment, until you find what works for you. There's no hard and fast rule.

Good luck,
Steven

I had to say A VERY BIG thank you for all the amazing HELP!

[Michael Fournier]

(Not a good idea of course, for designing your attic space. Instead try a reducing mirror.

A large mirror over your shoulder is a good idea to have anyway; it allows you to look at your painting with a fresh eye. If it is positioned in such a way so you can see both your canvas and your model at the same time, even better. Also, you can position it so your sitter can see the canvas as you work if you want, so they can see how the painting is progressing during the sitting. It helps them feel more a part of the process and they get less bored as they sit.