Tips For Organizing Your Art Studio Before It Gets Out Of Control

Today is the day I decided to start organizing better! After reading a few amazing blog posts on an awesome Facebook group I joined, #Blogwithheart. I made one of the best decisions, to declutter my workspace and make room for new better ideas. Was art studio organization easy?! No, for me it was not as I will confess I'm a clutter-bug and always have the excuse that after I clean up my art studio then I have no idea where anything is. If I just have it laying around randomly, I usually remember where I placed it last. Well, this was just that....an excuse and not a very good one that makes any sense! It took me the majority of the morning and I'm still not done but I've made a huge dent! Why am I writing an entire post about this?

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3 Reasons

1. Creativity is flowing again!
2. Less time wasted finding what's needed
3. Opened up a new spot after clearing all the clutter 

These 3 reasons completely made my entire day more productive and less stressful. Therefore, I'm sharing ideas on how I went about organizing everything with my readers in hopes to inspire and make someone else's day a little brighter and a little less cluttered!

-This post contains affiliate links. When certain links are clicked they will open in a tab within your browser. When a sale and/or service is completed I receive a small commission at no additional cost to you.

Making room out of sight

I didn't even know where to begin. There were acrylic paints everywhere, beach sand all over the table (there still is but its manageable), a basket I thought was helping me be more organized actually being a burden and half-finished canvases at different phases not progressing to the next level due to creatively blocking from all the visual chaos! So after a few half-hearted attempts to straighten things up, I knew I needed to do more than move stuff around. Everything I ended up using to organize with I already had, I did not go out and purchase anything fancy.

I thought that it would make the most sense to start with making some room in my cluttered pull-out drawers that are under my table that I use for storage. This way I could put the non-essential items that are on the desk out of sight but still easy to access when needed.

All of the items that I deemed as super non-essential that were already in the drawers got put back into where they originally belonged, or they were used to complete the task that I had stashed in the drawer, to begin with.

Essential vs. Non-essential

Essential = Am I using it today or tomorrow? If so, then its essential and goes into the category of staying on the desk. Not sure where on the desk just yet but I will find a place after I make places for everything in a bit.

Non-essential = Am I using it within a few days or might need it today or tomorrow? If the answer is no to both of those questions then it's non-essential but still important so it makes it into the drawer under the desk.

Making places for everything

Every item in my art studio is going to have its own spot in an area that makes sense. The security camera is going on the wall instead of sitting in a drawer, the random screws and hammer are going to be used and put back into the garage, the paints I don't use the most are getting their own drawer, and the canvases that are drying are going by the heater and not sitting on the easel where I should be working on one that is already dried.

Simple right?

I wish it were as simple as it sounds! Everything always seems as if its 3-4 steps before actually doing the main task I started doing in the first place. I organized my paints, to find more paints that I forgot I had. A pleasant surprise, however, I always use the saying, "if you cannot find it when you need it, then what good is it"? Mainly, I found that the miscellaneous items that I cleaned out of the drawers were side tasks that I had been putting off as I've been overloaded lately and for each of these I had put the necessary items to complete the task in the drawer with it. It feels really awesome to actually get these done making a lot of free space.

Art desk area

Essentials: table easel, lamps, acrylic paints being used, canvas being painted, brushes and I left all of them out because I never know which one I might need while I have the paint already mixed.

Non-essentials: Art compartment case that I have other paints in, basket that I have secret beach glass collection pieces in along with other miscellaneous items not in use right now, bucket of beach sand, a collection of metallic pigment powders that my bestie cousin got me but I'm not using today or tomorrow, a roll of paper towels which will be fine under the table on top of the drawers.....this was not so bad after all!

Drying area

I've run into yet another issue with not having enough electrical outlets and avoiding an overload of the ones that are within reach. Ok, enough with the excuses again! Thinking of a way to piece together a makeshift drying rack I browse through other blogs and scroll through a Google search trying to find a functional idea. I do not understand the drying racks that other artists seem to all be using in different varying suggestions.

Why does everyone break the art world rules of moving the artworks onto a tiny rung on a rack super close to another work in progress? Correct me if I'm mistaken but I didn't think that you were supposed to be even moving the canvas in the first place before its completely dried?!? Ok, now that I've expressed that minor annoyance, I can breathe a bit easier and know that my paint and varnish will not drip or get smudged because I'm not going to move it....I've made enough space that I don't need an extra spot for drying anymore and the space heater's cord stretches far enough that I can store it under the table until needed. Yay!

Items added

While organizing my art studio, I thought of a few items that I should add that would be useful and not be considered as clutter. A clock, a calendar for the wall, my scheduling journal, and my sketchbook. The problem I foresee with the sketchbook is then my colored pencils will end up in the art desk area somehow.....this will be an ongoing project! I had a clock on the wall a few months ago that I moved to a different spot within my home, I didn't realize how much I actually glanced up at it until after it was missing from the wall!

I am nowhere near being done but half the battle was actually starting! How do you declutter your art studio?  Feel free to leave a comment on how you organize everything! Now that you've read about where the magic all happens, take a look at my artwork on my website.