5 Cheap Methods to Keep Your Art Supplies OrganizedPosted by Huynh Flowers on May 17th, 2021 It's a myth your work-area has to be a disaster. It is not impossible to help keep your work area clean. Certain types of art are, naturally, messy (for example, pottery). That doesn't have to mean that it has to look like a kiln exploded in your workshop. It's a secret embarrassment of many artists, something that doesn't often appear for discussion. It gets written off as a subject more suited for housecleaning than art. After all, when you chat with other artists, you'd rather spend time discussing technique... not the truth that your work area is a disaster. Whether you're a high-school art prodigy, a college student with a course-load of artwork classes, or a professional artist, managing your diverse and often-messy cache of art supplies may become a secret nightmare. A messy work area can be very frustrating. It is impossible to get your work done quickly if you cannot find anything that you need in order to get it done in the first place. This can have a negative impact on your bottom line: your earnings. The faster, better, and better you get your projects done, the more money you will definitely be able to make. Period. I will also openly admit that I personally feel far less inclined to do work when carrying out work is inconvenient. The easier and much more convenient you make it on your own to accomplish work, the more work you'll do. The more cluttered and frustrating your projects space it is, the much more likely you're to go "I'll take action later" and walk away. The easiest way to get a large amount of work done is to make it as easy as possible for yourself to do your work. This article isn't just for those who have a dedicated workshop, though. It easily applies to art students and hobbyists. It's a misconception that creating a nice work area takes tons of money. While your equipment itself may be expensive, you don't need to spend a huge amount of money organizing your work area and art supplies. In fact, I'd advise against it - the less overall you spend getting everything to be able, the more you need to spend on the REALLY FUN things (like jigsaws). Listed below are five methods to cheaply organize your art supplies: 1. Set aside a separate work-area This is an area for art, and your art supplies. Only art supplies goes into this area, and art supplies usually do not go anywhere else. This includes dedicated storage for the art supplies. The more they get mixed in with other activities, the less likely it really is that you will be able to find them when you really need them. This doesn't need to be a separate room, or the garage (although both these options are really nice if you have the luxury). It can you need to be a corner of a rec room, a bedroom, a closet. A special table dedicated for these purposes may also help, as you won't need to be worried about destroying other furniture with paint, glue, clay, etc. Make sure that the table is used limited to art, and art projects. It will make keeping it clear and protecting anything that is drying/curing/etcetera a easier task. 2. Make sure that you can easily see everything Many art supplies are costly - any broke scholar knows that! Even the cheap ones add up after a few years. How often is it that you have desperately needed a specific tool and been struggling to find it all of your toolboxes? How often has your artwork suffered for this reason? For a long time, I kept the majority of my art supplies in opaque tackle-boxes. They were cheap, that they had compartments, they did the job. The problem was that I'd forget what was in my tackle-boxes, only to come across something that I really may have used months ago and didn't know that I had. This could be expensive, because you keep purchasing the same art supplies over and over again, when you could have avoided the problem if you had just remembered you had them to begin with - and knew where to find them. Nobody can keep an ideal catalog of all of the supplies that they have in their head. Something of labeling your boxes or keeping inventory in some recoverable format is annoying, time-consuming, and ultimately unwieldy. One of the best things that I ever did was to start out keeping all of my tools and supplies in exclusively clear plastic bins and toolboxes. You don't have to buy special boxes because of this task - a trip to the Dollar Store or Walmart will net you lots of cheap, clear plastic boxes. There is no need to visit a specialty art store and purchase boxes and toolboxes focused on this task. Don't look for these in the arts & crafts section, as anything you find there is likely to be overpriced. Go to the Homes section, and check out the Hardware section as well. Often, there are very cheap tool-boxes and tackle-boxes with some nifty clear compartments. Tackle-boxes are specially useful. Just because they were originally intended for fishing lures doesn't make sure they are less ideal for storing art supplies. The compartments are great for organizing your odds and ends. Odds are, not everything you have (or the majority of things you have) will not fit neatly in a tackle-box. A slightly more costly option that has paid for itself in convenience is to buy the small dresser-like plastic storage compartments with clear drawers that you could find in the Homes section. They come in several sizes, and are useful for holding everything from pencils to electronic parts. One of the things that I did to create my sketch-pads more manageable was to place them in an obvious plastic dresser. Some of the organizers have drawers which are an ideal size for printer paper and notebooks. To control my many drawing pens, pencils, and markers, which long languished in underneath of a tackle-box, I bought some pencil cases from Walmart for 50 cents apiece and dedicated an incident to each sort of drawing implement. The cases fit nicely in the drawers of the organizer, and stack nicely in plastic bins. When you can find clear or semitransparent cases, even better. I label the exterior of the cases in order that I know what is in each pencil case. Choosing the best pen or pencil used to have a while, now it requires about 15 seconds. You don't need to buy special cases because of this though, even though hard cases will protect your more delicate pencils better. Large zip-lock bags are also excellent for this task. They're also ideal for storing your tubes of paint, erasers, etc. An exception to the "put everything in clear bins" rule is some paints. Many of them are light-sensitive and shouldn't be out sitting in the light all of the time. My solution was to put them in clear bins and then drape a dark cloth over them. Better still should you have a cupboard you can put them in. This way, I could open my cupboard and peek beneath the cloth to see exactly what paint I have, without fretting about light destroying the pigments. 3. Label everything clearly Even if you can easily see into your drawers, label what's in them anyway. Get yourself a little bit of masking tape and write a list of the things within your drawer or bin - "Micron Pens, Prismacolors, Grease Pencils". Affix this to the front of every drawer, and the top and side of every bin. It appears pretty dumb - after all, you remember what's in your bins, and you will see what's in them, right? Well, once you have 20 bins and 16 drawers and you're trying to find something quickly, these labels can help you find it a lot more quickly than your memory can. People may touch upon it, they may try to make fun of you. No matter, let 'em. Exactly the same friends who thought that my labeled drawers were silly are the ones who marvel at how quickly I could get things done. crafting supply 4. Get a peg-board, and a cork-board or dry-erase board A peg-board doesn't cost much, but it keeps your tools off of the tables/counters and in plain sight. Both these things are important. You need to be able to grab a decent-sized peg board at a hardware store for -20. This is a more flexible alternative than screwing hooks into your walls, is easy to install, and will save a lot of grief while you are looking through all of your toolboxes something and can't think it is. A peg-board is useful for a lot more than just things such as hammers and drills. It really is awesome for hanging rulers, T-squares, L-squares, and larger-sized paint brushes. You don't need to worry about your rulers getting bent, and you also won't be panicking because you can't find your French Curve. The cork-board is ideal for pinning up things like lists, notes, and reference pictures. It doesn't seem all that important, but it's valuable when you need to keep track of things such as schedules and appointments, and is really as much a part of your work area as your pens and pencils. A dry-erase board can serve the same function, helping you keep track of your schedule and projects. The reason why this is important is basically because your To-Do list and projects are there before you constantly, also it keeps projects from "slipping between the cracks" and getting forgotten about (something that will set you back money and reputation). 5. Continue to keep your table/counters/work surfaces CLEAR I know that sounds basic, but it gets ignored frequently: when you are done with something, put it away! Some things must be left alone up for grabs in order to set, dry, etc. That's fine. What isn't fine is hammers, glue, tubes of paint, brushes, etc. A tube of paint here, a few pencils there -- "you'll put them away later" -- and, suddenly, you've got a mountain of miscellaneous art supplies sitting directly on top of the work area that you should use. You'll feel far less inclined to get your work done when you have to clear a heap of junk off of your work space instead of just being able to sit down and finish your task. After you've gone to your time and effort of arranging them, 90% of maintaining your supplies organized is just picking up after yourself. The simplest way to stay organized is to not have to help keep organizing your things to begin with. Putting something away immediately while you are done with it will save time down the road, as you are more likely to remember exactly where it goes if you just used it. Storing a complete heap of things once you can't quite remember wherever each one goes will consume more time. A messy work-space is really a slippery slope - the messier it gets, the more quickly it gets messier. Cleaning it up becomes a serious chore. Save the grief, and just put your pens away if you are done with them - even though you're going to utilize them again later today, or tomorrow. Sometimes things appear and you don't get back to work, and that's when the mess starts creeping inLike it? Share it! More by this author |