My studio was remarkably clean this morning, So I figured I better document it. Even at its cleanest my studio is still pretty cluttery. It's a little over 300 square feet and half of it is dedicated kid space. My dad built a play loft for them so they have two levels of space. I have a stage that I move around to catch natural light for models. A light box area that fits 2-3 still life set ups and a desk area. Usually I keep 2 major paintings going at a time and do random small ones along the way. I generally work between 15 and 20 hours a week, and the kids are with me the whole time since they aren't in school yet. They are pretty good at entertaining themselves,they have a lot of toys there, but mainly they draw and paint and work with playdough. They also run around and visit the other artists in the studio.
I work at
Water Street Studios in Batavia IL. It's a community art center that rents space to about 30 artists whose work ranges from sculpture and ceramics to painting, photography, and graphic design. We have classrooms for teaching and a gallery that is home to 3 juried shows a year.
Well, I've finally finished a couple of paintings. Here is "The Dragon Fan" 16x20 oil on linen. For all of the in progress photos look at http://leahrmitchell.blogspot.com/2011/02/dragon-fan.html
So my 5 year old son says to me the other day: "Mom, you're really good at drawing naked people" Here are a couple figure drawings I've been working on. The top three are drawings from life that I did in school, the fourth is actually a drawing from a sculpture. I spent several hours at the Art Institute drawing one of the sculptures. The second is a drawing done from life a few years ago. Lately my opportunities to work from life have been pretty much non existent. The last one is a master copy.
My studio was remarkably clean this morning, So I figured I better document it. Even at its cleanest my studio is still pretty cluttery. It's a little over 300 square feet and half of it is dedicated kid space. My dad built a play loft for them so they have two levels of space. I have a stage that I move around to catch natural light for models. A light box area that fits 2-3 still life set ups and a desk area. Usually I keep 2 major paintings going at a time and do random small ones along the way. I generally work between 15 and 20 hours a week, and the kids are with me the whole time since they aren't in school yet. They are pretty good at entertaining themselves,they have a lot of toys there, but mainly they draw and paint and work with playdough. They also run around and visit the other artists in the studio. 
I asked one of my brothers to sit for me recently, he was on spring break from grad school, he agreed to do it, but had a ton of homework so he read while I painted it. It was a really comfortable time of reading and painting and chatting and I hope that comes through in the painting. It is oil on canvas, 22x28 (I think) and I spent between 6 and 8 hours on it.
