No matter what kind of art you do, there are a few things that every artist needs to stay organized, clean, and creative. Below is a short list of some everyday items an amateur or professional artist should have in their creative space.
Color Chart
Most art uses color in some form. While art is subjective, most agree that some colors match better with others. Any artist who has a lot of coloring/drawing supplies knows that it can be hard to remember which color actually looks like which when it is on paper. That’s where having a prismacolor color chart comes in handy.
With one of these charts, or one like it, you can fill in a square with each color and label it with the color’s number Many art supplies already assign a number to each color, but if yours do not, simply make up your own number and label your pencil/pen. By doing this, you will know what the color looks like on paper, so you don’t need to test out each color every time you want to draw just to find the right one.
Work Station
Arts and crafts can get messy, so it’s important to have a place to work on them that will help you avoid getting other areas of your home messy. A work station doesn’t necessarily need to be a whole craft room. It can simply be a table and chair that is separate from your normal working desk and dining room table. The size doesn’t really matter, so long as it is big enough to fit your needs.
This table doesn’t need to be the fanciest thing in the world either. In fact, it really shouldn’t. Try to find a table second-hand. More likely than not, you are going to spill all sorts of art supplies on it over the years, so you may as well get something that’s already a little dinged up. If you only don’t have the space to put another table, get a tablecloth or something else to protect whatever table you are going to use.
Another benefit of having a work station is that you can leave works-in-progress out on the table, rather than needing to put them away and take them back out every time you want to work on them. This is especially important if you are working on anything that needs time to dry out before it can be put away, like paintings.
Organizational Container
The best crafters have a little bit of a hoarding tendency when it comes to crafting supplies. Keeping things organized is key to making sure that your home is not overrun with craft items.
Use little containers to put your craft items in. These can be boxes, crates, or even a whole bookshelf. If you cannot see what items are in each closed container (if the container isn’t clear), make sure to label the container so you know what is inside. This will make finding your items later much easier and can keep you from making a mess.
Extras
Lastly, every great artist should make sure that they always have extra art supplies on hand. There is hardly anything more frustrating than working on a project, only to run out of the materials that you need to finish it.
This isn’t to say that a good artist should have double the supplies they need to finish a craft. Instead, artists should take stock of what they have before they start a project. If they are not sure if it will use up all their supplies or not, it’s better to buy more of the supply just in case. In art, as in everything else, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
Making art should be fun and a way to relieve stress. By having these items, you can make clean up and organization much less stressful. Have fun crafting!
