I am very fortunate to have two studio spaces I can work in.

I didn’t always have the luxury of these two studio spaces to work, but as the family has been slowly been getting smaller I have been able to spread out a bit. Even the outside shed for printing is relatively recent – previously I took over a section of the garage with my print table and press. This was very difficult trying to keep clean – one of the aspects of getting spot free printing is to have clean surfaces and surroundings so dirt and dust is not getting onto linoblocks, tables and ink surfaces. But you make do with the best you can, aim to get some space – even if small where you can work. The best places are simply somewhere you can leave your work out if at all possible so that you don’t have to constantly get it out to work and put it away when you finish, that is the best thing about having these two spaces – the freedom to come and go whilst working.

My print studio is now outside in a shed, as printing can be messy and smelly with the oil based inks I use, somewhere with good ventilation is the best way to go if you can find a space like that – like I said before even the corner of a garage is a place to start – but as I say ‘every girl needs a shed’!

Above is my Print Studio which I recently painted and re-organised.…some shelving, repainted old cupboards including laminex ones with a product that allows water-based enamel paint over oil based, and general cleaning and re-ordering. You can see above my long print table with extra shelving for storage. It has two large windows above the print table that allows for lots of lovely natural light to work with.

…All lovely crisp white and sea blue…

I have a small filing cabinet – so I have somewhere to keep any paperwork. The small cupboard on the left is a general purpose one for storage but the one on the right is a print drying cupboard.

This is what the inside of the print cupboard looks like with prints laying flat to dry.

It is also where obviously my small bookpress is for printing. With its own designated steel legged table as it is although small, very heavy.

My other studio space you can see below is a room attached to the back our house and was previously the ‘family room’.

I can work and still interact with the family here – so I can carve, draw etc there. This has its positives and negatives as I would probably get more work done if I could simply hide in the outside studio shed but not so good on the family front.

I am fortunate that this room has two large walls of windows that open into my garden and it is light and airy.

I have re-arranged it recently so I have large bookcases with all my reference books, a bookcase with all my photo file boxes, a lovely drawing table and chair as well as my carving table. Most importantly I can set up my computer here and music!

Copyright – Lynette Weir