I’m taking a break from posting another art lesson (don’t worry, I have lots in the pipeline) to update you all on the goings-on with Deep Space Sparkle…

• I’m not going to lie, DSS has been keeping me very busy. I’m in the second week of Teaching Art 101 and I’m thoroughly it.  Although none of the lessons are live, the forum and our Flickr page keeps everyone connected. There are students from all over the world, which is absolutely amazing when you think that DSS has brought us all together. It’s been inspiring reading their bio’s and seeing their “homework” on our Flickr page. Lots of very creative people out there!
• I’ve been working on new e-books and although the process has been slow, I hope to unveil “Working with Watercolors” soon. It’s geared for the upper elementary grades and it contains my favorite watercolor lessons that I have never posted on this site before. Last summer, I released Mini Modern Masters with Video and it seems as though many of you love the videos. I’ll be doing more video lessons and offering them with my ebooks.
• I’m also hoping to restructure the Deep Space Sparkle store. This is a big job and too big for Neil and I so I’m looking to hire a web designer to do the heavy lifting. Exciting and scary at the same time.

Creating my Workspace

Most of my time is spent developing new lessons and then actually teaching these lessons, but every now and then, I’ll find some time to fix up my new office. My process has been slow, but this is what I’ve done:

• Create a color palette. I kind of felt like a real interior designer as I was thumbing through paint chips trying to find the perfect studio color. Turms out that after lengthy pondering, I really just wanted a clean, crisp color palette. I opted to paint my workspace a light grey, which just happens to be the color of my entire downstairs. Why not? The paint was free.
• On buying bookcases: Go for quality when you can. I’m a thrift store gal and like to reuse and repurpose when I can. Most of my house was furnished this way, as was my mother’s house and quite possibly her mother’s house. But this time, I wanted a cohesive look and after spending a couple of months perusing our thrift stores, I gave up and drove to 2 hours to IKEA. I initially though I’d buy the BILLY bookcases. They are white, big and cheap. When I got there, I changed my mind. I found some shelves that felt heavier and came in an antique wood. They were more expensive, but this is IKEA afterall, so it was affordable. I even splurged and decide to get the glass front case. I felt so grown up.
• Re-use when you can: I had an enormous armoire in my son’s room. It was basically an eyesore. My husband and I didn’t have enough muscle to move this beast so I left it in the room while I painted. After painting the room, I just kept going, painting the armoire the same color as the room. You know what? It looked pretty darn good! We pushed the painted armoire to the old closet area and now it holds all my art lessons files and my printer! This thing is now my favorite (well almost) thing in my office.

• Glass jars make great containers. I have tubs of markers, crayons and colored pencils. I have so many because I keep buying more thinking I don’t own any. Anyone else do this? So what do you do with them so you don’t buy more? Display them, of course.  A few unused jars and containers from my pantry served my markers well. Now I have something colorful to look at when I’m in need of a color jolt.
• Think beyond standard office equipment. Yesterday, I snuck off to Target between softball games and bought the cool turquoise lamp in the picture. I love that thing!!! My office is starting to feel more like my blog: white with pops of color.