Quelle Wreck!

I thought I'd invite you back into my studio today and first show you something sublime -

Beautiful pastry boxes.

Now fasten your seatbelts!

You're definitely in for a bumpy ride!

So this is my still life setup area by the one window in my 11' x 11' studio. I think I have South light - not sure. Afternoon light whatever that is?

I have a horseshoe setup of "door" tables resting on filing cabinets FULL OF TOO MANY PAPERS! My computer is facing the window area.The door is to my right so I'm not sure how un-feng shui I am..Hmmm
I usually put whatever I'm painting up on the desktop and paint directly from it. Especially since the subject matter may be long gone.

A pull back showing my wonderful Canon scanner that changed my life dramatically.THANK YOU Canon.
I used to wait for daylight to shoot my watercolors and then they would still come out pink or crooked.

To the right of my computer - my watercolors and maybe my still life subjects...
My cousin Bill asked me where was I putting all the new miniatures I'm painting of late? They don't take up alot of space Bill :)

Next my watercolor paintbox and enamel palette.

My SURGICAL TOOLS - my paint brushes...Scalpel please.

Oooops the rest of the table to my left.
So why am I showing you all this havoc?
Because I hope these will become my "BEFORE" pictures. 

I am taking ArtBizCoach.com's "Get Organized" class to change things around here.
Are you feeling overwhelmed?
Drowning in clutter?
Losing time to poor habits?
Don't know where to begin to start files and databases?
Chaos has always reigned supreme in my studio. Only in Paris, minus all my junk, have I ever had an airy, open clear place to work and I liked it!? So I've got until February 9th to make some serious changes around here,
YES. Well I'm gonna try anyway.

It would be so nice if every box I receive did not become a table for papers etc.Plus my new way faster tower is sitting inside this box (do I have to say it's been sitting there for 2 weeks..?)

I still have a ways to go to top Francis Bacon in messiness...This is now a shrine to him as well as a book, so maybe I should leave things as they are?
But here's a good book to get you going in the other direction -
EAT THAT FROG!
And here is Jana Bouc's very beautifully organized studio!

I'll leave you with some more lovely boxes after that bumpy ride through my studio. Are you doing the "January thing" of uncluttering and reorganizing your life too?

My Studio 2010

Some of you may wonder what's going on at Parisbreakfast studio. I haven't shown you many paintings lately.

This is a page from a book dummy I'm working on. In fact its pretty busy around here. Since January I've been painting up a storm for an exhibit. At the James Beard Foundation's Greenhouse Gallery
167 West 12th Street NYC It opens THIS Saturday May 1 and I have to hang it tomorrow.Eeeek Time for an updated tour of PB Studios. The studio back in October 2008, when my landlord decided to put in a new floor while I was away in Paris.

Eeeek My "Paris" studio at Hotel La Louisiane. I've been showing you lots of photographs of late. It's like a daily walking tour through Paris whenever I look for the stories I make up each day for PB.I am horridly late on YOUR PORTRAITS! ouch
This weekend Bear and I will hit the books nonstop.  
We haven't forgotten you at all!
THANKS PB readers for your patience.
 The portrait sale has been extended.

Back to painting!

Back to macaron researche for the book.

Natasha Bedingfield puts it so well:

Trying to find the magic
Trying to write paint a classic
Waste-bin full of paper
Clever rhymes drawings, see you later

These words are my own
From my heart flow
I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you

More PB Studio posts:Quelle Wreck!

Quelle Wreck 2

Come On-A My House...

It's My Life/ These are my Confessions

My Beautiful Paris Studio...

MY STUDIO

My Studio

Brought to you by special request. YOU ASKED FOR IT! My studio.
Steve of Puhiava's Sketch Journal said...Carol, what is currently on your palette? ...if you could let us know what you're using it would be appreciated.
I put my colors out according to the color wheel. They're just your standard colors: Cad red, Cad yellow, Cad orange, French blue, Pthalo, Cerulean blue etc + a bunch of earth colors. Most are Winsor & Newton paints. My paintbox on the other hand is more eclectic, more experimental. These pans I've made myself, so I'm not limited to any manufacturer's color chart and I can choose from 100's of pigment colors. Remember the sugar cube post from last week? And remember my search for the Deux Magots ashtray-paint pan? These souvenirs hang out on my drawing table as friendly reminders of Paris adventures. Maryann gave me the white Fauchon paté container... Since I was a kid I've always hung my walls with inspirational pictures, every inch of it. I love the simplicity of Japanese woodblock prints... More wall stuff here. The paper placemat of the water glasses I nicked from café Luco last May :) Toni of A Spattering said..No don't straighten the studio! I want to see how you work and work in progress in the studio. Not a problem on this one. I'm a sloppy painter. I constantly lose stuff right under my nose -- important bits of paper, brushes, you name it.
7 Reece Mews: Francis Bacon's Studio

The all time master slob painter was Francis Bacon. He did paint tests on his own door for God's sake!? 7 Reece Mews, is a book on his messy studio. It records the efforts conservateurs made to catalogue and preserve his hellhole of a studio, every scrap of it, over 7,000 items. I'd go here anyday before the Eiffel Tower. I especially like this notation,
"1,300 leaves torn from books"...

My Studio 2011

WELCOME! You're invited in to my studio 2011

Not that much different from my studio 2010 is it?

OK maybe it is.

Amazing how many ways you can throw stuff up in the air and it comes down in different patterns like pickup sticks.

These macarons are only 3 months old.

I use a pastry box to reflect the light - another Eureka moment.

Do you believe if you surround yourself with the things you love, eventually they'll sink into your brain by osmosis? I do.

I love Morandi, Wayne Thiebaud, Japanese prints, and Fr pastry.

The studio exhibit is constantly changing.

Here is a pile of Parisian gifts-with-purchase I send out with your watercolors.What BEAR is reading these days.

BONJOUR STUDIO 2011!

The Power of Habit

 I was going to post on The Power of Habit yesterday but Carole Bouquet took precedence.

 I tend to stick in my studio more than I like to admit. There are days when I don't even go downstairs to get the mail.

 But since I've been reading Charles Duhigg's The Power of Habit.

 Doing the stairs are my new exercise (wish these were my stairs).

 The author had a daily 3:30 pm chocolate chip cookie habit he wanted to break. He talks about it on Fresh Air.

 I have an anytime-of-day daily ice cream habit I want to break.

 There's a neat little film on Amazon that clearly explains the cycle of cue-routine-reward process of our habits.

  Vacations are the perfect time to change habits and to form new ones Duhigg suggests. We can brush our teeth a new way if we're on vacation. Here's hoping au revoir to daily ice cream cones!

 Climbing stairs (32 steps) in my building hourly has become a new habit. Plus going outside for a gulp of fresh air while I'm at it. It's an easy habit to form and takes just 2 minutes. Then I mark it on a dry-erase 'hourly' chart. That's my reward + the gulp of fresh air.

 Will I continue to climb stairs while in Paris? Do I have a choice? Paris is never short of stairs to climb.

 Have I lost weight since I started 2 weeks ago? I don't have a scale but redistribution is going on. I can button my coat all the way these days. Plus I feel terrific.

 More energetic and not so cloistered in my studio.

At least I'll be in good fighting shape to cope with Gerard Mulot chocolate stairs. Take a look at The Power of  Habit and tell me what you think. I have to go do the stairs.

BON WEEKEND!