Since our move to North Wales we’ve been able to appreciate setting up a more permanent base. Due to various reasons we moved house every year of university which made it difficult to really setting. I have spent an awful lot of time not painting over the last year. Working a full-time job has reduced the number of hours I can spend painting and making things. However, little by little, I have managed to finish my prep studio and helped Dot with setting herself up better.
It’s been a challenging time for me. I struggle with life a lot more when I’m not painting. The wait was not completely necessary, nor planned. My mum’s garden shed which had been promised to my use was in slight disrepair. It needed new roofing felt and repaired woodwork.
My grandad had built the shed over a decade ago and had not quite finished wiring the electrics in. It was deemed unsafe by an electrician and unfortunately for months we were unable to track an electrician to fix and certify them. I kept out of the shed so an electrician could come quickly and get it all sorted out without me worrying about them damaging any of my paintings. In hindsight this was probably not the best decision because of how long it eventually took to get someone.
In this time I made other preparations, so it wasn’t at all wasted. I prepared a fairly large number of canvases and boards, including a large one (110cm x 180cm) that took quite some time to prepare!
After the success of my priming bench I thought it would be awesome to have the same sort of thing in my painting studio! I measured up the shed and designed as large a bench as possible. It measures 120cm x 220cm and has more space between shelves than my other bench so that I can get my arm all the way in to fetch smaller canvases that might get pushed to the back. Initially I had planned to have six large shelves measuring 120cm x 120cm, four measuring 120cm x 85cm, and one double height shelf (120cm x 85cm) with a reinforced base to store things like blue roll, thinners, paint etc.
My plans changed a bit once I had constructed the bench and realised the storage shelf was far too deep to be practical. So I decided to turn it into a drawer. After making a small glass palette for Dot, I had the idea to make one for my bench that pulled out from the space in the top shelf. The plan seemed great until I looked up how much a large piece of safety glass costs! The next day I went to work and miraculously found a large window about to be thrown into the skip! I quickly asked for it and it was mine in an instant. When I brought it home it amazingly was the EXACT size for my bench, it couldn’t have been much better! I bought some seriously heavy duty full extension drawer slides and set about installing it.
If I’m totally honest, it didn’t work out exactly how I planned. I seemed to stumble at every hurdle which isn’t typical of me. I got there in the end and managed to finish it just in time for the electricians to finally come and sort the shed out.
Although far later than I would have liked, it all ended up happening at the right time. I had been given more than a weeks holiday and I spent most of that time installing working on the bench and then installing it in the shed.
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