Morning Light in my Studio

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Wanted to share the moment with you.

I walked into my studio this morning and was struck at how beautiful the natural light streaming into the space was. Usually I don't show people my work until its done, but this is more a glimpse of the whole working environment. I spend a lot of time right here, standing in the same spot mixing colors in endless combinations. Painters get very fond of their tools. When the magic is working right, they become extensions of your hands and ultimately of your ideas.

If you click on the photo you'll see it enlarged, revealing the lovely little row of fresh white oil pigments. They always remind me of Hershey's Kisses that came in a shape I decided was just perfect when I discovered them as a child. Here on my palatte they look ready and raring to go.

As I do a fair number of large studio paintings, I store my pigments on the small palatte to the right and do the color mixing on the larger palatte to the left. It's a large masonite board nailed to the wooden studio table. I used to try to do everything on just the small palatte, but found I had to stop everything to clean the palatte when I switched into a different family of colors. With a really large palatte you can leave a whole tribe of cool blue colors wet and ready while mixing up a contrasting spread of oranges and reds. A big palatte just gives you more space to have more color choices available to choose from. I find it a great help.

Time to get to work...

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