Brantley Phillips' art workspace has grown to fill an entire room. It looks comfy, spacious, and well-lit. He says it's "messy" because he uses it! Quoting Brantley:
"I think back to all the pictures I see of other people's [art workspaces], and things look so organized ... and I think, is that what your room looks like after you've been working in it for several days? What does it look like the moment you just got through with a huge project? Where's the mess on the floor? Don't you have like, a bunch of pencil shavings everywhere? Where's the little wad of eraser crumbs that you've swept off to one side of your table?"
Hmm. Brantley, if I didn't clean up before taking a picture of my workspace, you wouldn't be able to see the workspace, as it's so small; it would be buried under the mess! I salute Brantley for being the first of the "messy" artists I know to show us the truth! (Did you see my post showing artists' workspaces in videos? Some are super neat and some -- okay, many -- are messy. All are what the artists feel comfortable working in.)
Brantley draws a lot with charcoal and with pencil, but he also paints with acrylics. The reason you don't see his painting equipment in these pictures is that he does most of his painting away from home.
"That, and I don't have any more room on my table. :) Actually the arrangement on my table changes depending on what I'm working on, but this is pretty much what it all gravitates back to."
Note that he has a stack of CDs on the table. Music to listen to while drawing?
"Yes, definitely...I love to have music playing while I'm drawing or painting. It gets the wheels in motion. Sometimes it's the more sophisticated flavors of music like Andrea Bocelli or Miles Davis, but it could drift off into Led Zeppelin, Creed, Linkin Park...heck, it could be the Muppets Christmas CD, who knows. But sometimes I work in silence. It's then that the brain seems to work on autopilot and the art starts creating itself."
It looks like he has everything at his fingertips -- All he has to do is swivel around in that comfortable looking chair.
"Yes, it's like being Captain Kirk on Star Trek...I sit in my little chair and navigate the universe before me."
Brantley and his wife live in Alaska where they enjoy fishing, boating, camping, hiking, motorcycling, and getting together with friends -- among other things. What a great place it must be to live, if you don't mind the cold.
"Actually the cold's not that bad. But then again, I like cold weather. The dark gets old sometimes in the Winter, but then you get paid back in Summer with eternal daylight."
Brantley's first art space (the kitchen table)
Brantley doesn't have a website or blog so I'm going to show some of his artwork and tell a little more about him in upcoming posts.
Also see Brian McGurgan's Art Workspace.
0 comments:
Post a Comment