CRUSADE 59, New Year's Organization & Master Class

Warning: Long post but there is a surprise at the end. 

Hi everyone, I hope you're enjoying the weekend. We've had a soggy day so far with rain and a few thunderstorms, but at least it's warm: 59˚ and the sun is peeking through-not bad for 'Winter' hah!

Michelle Ward has another great challenge this month-instead of making a To-Do list for 2012, she prompts us to make a 'Ta-Da' list of what we accomplished in 2011. I love it! I'm one of those people who is more effective and productive when I'm 'basking' in my recent accomplishements. It propels me to move forward with the next project. So: first up on my TaDa list. I added three rolling drawer carts to my studio. They are great for storing all those bits and pieces-and they are cheap! Below is a pic of one of them: 

Drawers are labeled: 'Office Supplies, pencils, pens, in-progress sketches, brushes and sketch covers.'

Below is an aerial view of the office supplies drawer, a divided box is perfect for small objects. This allows me to easily find my most used items. I really needed something like this because my beloved  home made 'desk' has no drawers.

Below is a pic of some sketchbooks taken last fall. 

•••••••••Here is my big TaDa for 2011. •••••••••

After years of sketching you can imagine I have hundreds of sketches and hundreds of reference photos.

Well - I finally bit-the-bullet and matched up all of them - yes it took forEver. :-)

 Now if I have an unfinished sketch and I want to work on it weeks later, I don't have to search all over for the reference photo. Examples are below:

                                              Pencil drawings that someday I'll want to paint.

                         ummmm . . . why didn't I think of this four years ago?  LOL!

Below is a close-up of my notes about the sketch: Pencil, pen, inktense (the gold one above). This helps me keep track of my experimental techniques and build upon them. I also write the date on each page so I can track my progress, etc.

 Because I scan most of my sketches, I created a system: One large PhotoShop file for each month. It reduces file clutter on the computer and helps me find images quickly.

                                      

Below is a detail of one of the files, each sketch has a layer-it's working out really well-yay!

Finally, I created a catch-all for the reference photos that I'm planning to work on in the near future. This saves me the time of going through all of my reference and helps me get straight to painting. Of course the 'board' is made of large cardboard pieces that came in a mail-order package. Dh teases me because I never throw away a box or good piece of sturdy cardboard. I have the last laugh though because a similar board cost $80.00 at the Office supply store so  . . . . he had to admit I was right. love that!

As always: Thank you Michelle for another fun challenge! There's still time so feel free to join us. Here is the surprise I promised you.  Seth was kind enough to include me in his post for tomorrow (Jan. 22). I hope you'll click over and visit the Altered Page.