Getting Organized

One of the things I was determined to do after I became thoroughly besotted with pastel painting was to make sure that I got organized. I am into my third year painting now and while I do not have a huge number of paintings to catalog, I surprised myself as to the number I had painted when I began to take inventory.  My first year in only a few months as I began my journey, I painted thirteen paintings. The second year when my interest began to build, and my desire to challenge myself outside the classes, I painted 51 paintings.  If this year is anything like last year, it will be a similar number.

Thanks to a very organized pastel painter whom I respect tremendously I received a lot of insight and guidance from his new book. Richard McKinley has written an excellent book for pastel painters describing his techniques, how he sorts and organizes his pastels by colors and value, what paper he uses, how he uses washes, and how he catalogs his paintings.  The book in case you are interested, is called "Pastel Pointers" and even has a DVD in the back to demonstrate some of Richards techniques. There are many more good chapters than the ones I listed, but you get the idea. Richard really shared every aspect of his art.

One of the chapters that really caught my interest was a chapter devoted to cataloging pastels, developing an artist bio sheet for use in shows, and also a sheet to affix to the back of framed pastels that gives their catalog number, title, the artists copyright signature and also a nice little bio about what he hopes to achieve with his paintings.

That chapter resonated with me, so I made the decision to get more organized and look more professional. I developed my own Bio that I can now use at a show, or future shows. I also made up my own log in Microsoft Excel, to list my paintings by their number in order of completion, whether they are a pastel or some other medium, the month painted, the year, the size, type of paper used, what size the framed piece is and whether they have been sold, given as a gift, or entered in a show.   It took me a quite a few hours to create this log and then enter all of the data into it. However, I am now up to date and all of my paintings are cataloged. When I go to deliver my four entries into the Vistas show next month, each painting will be readily identified with my personal sheet on the back providing all of the necessary information to the gallery, or to a buyer.  If a painting sells, I can indicate the name of the buyer in my log in case there is some reason I need to contact them in the future. If there was a worst case scenario and I had a fire that destroyed my inventory, I would have a complete record of everything lost.

Another wonderful aid to organization was a Christmas gift from my wife, a Degas pastel carrying case that has straps and will hold 196 whole pastel sticks, or three times that number broken in thirds.  I have organized my pastels by color and value in this wonderful case and can close it up and take it with me if I want to go out and paint on a location somewhere. The pastels are packed individually in foam slots, and foam goes over them to keep them from moving when you are ready to close them up. The other nice addition was four separate extra pastel box inserts that fit into the pastel case and I can store a back-up inventory of every pastel I have acquired, so that when I run out of a color in my portable easel box, or my working easel and carrier , I know exactly what color to replace it with.

These little first steps will go a long way to helping me stay organized with my art. My next goal is to gradually reorganize my home studio so that everything in it is functional, useful and easy to find. One of my first goals is to build a new easel that will be so much more functional and practical than the old aluminum one I am using currently.  I hope this behavior on my part motivates you to think about organizing your studio, inventory or reference library. If you have some great tips you use, or some other ideas, please share them. We all get better when we share our passion our techniques, and those little things that help make it all come together.