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| 'Hidden Beauty' 5x7 oil on panel ©Karen Margulis SOLD |
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I am headed to the thrift store. That's one of my favorite places for art materials. I don't mean paints and brushes and other supplies although I did find a nice box of pastels once. You really never know what treasures you will find. I make it a habit to visit my local thrift stores once a week. Now that I am working on small daily oil paintings I need some kind of drying rack. With six cats and a very active dog, I just can't leave wet paintings unprotected. I am anticipating what goodies I might find today. Read on to see one of my best thrift store art finds:
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| 'The Secret Meadow' 5x7 oil on panel SOLD |
For pastel artists one of the most important things we need in our studio besides an easel and pastel box is a way to store our paper. It is more cost effective to buy paper in big sheets and just cut the sizes you prefer. The problem with big sheets is that you need to room to store them flat so they stay in good condition. I buy sheets that are 18x24 or 19x27. That means I need a shelf at least 19" deep. I had my husband make me a shelf from MDF board and it worked well until I found this thrift store treasure....a Bakers Rack!
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| My Paper Rack is actually a Bakers rack on wheels. |
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This wonderful unit is solid wood with five slightly slanted shelves. It fits most of my paper perfectly. It is on heavy duty locking wheels so I can move it around easily f I need. to. The best part of this shelf unit is the price. I got it for the grand total of $12! Don't despair if you think you will never find anything like this in your thrift store. A few weeks after I found my shelf , I came across a set of metal flat files from an architect's office. I didn't buy them because I didn't have room but good stuff that can be re-purposed for art is out there!
I'd love to hear how you store your paper? Write me a comment or send an email. I'd like to share your ideas in a future post.
Today's paintings are #3 and #4 of my daily oil painting challenge. They are inspired by the wild poppies that grow near my parent's home in North Carolina. The paintings are done with a limited palette of red,blue, yellow, black and white.
6 comments:
Wow! You seriously lucked with that baker's shelf. I've got a couple of large portfolios that I keep big sheets in and some boards get stored in the boxes Blick shipped them in. So far that's all I've got for full sheet storage.
But I dream of having shelves or drawers big enough to store full sheets flat.
I love my paper rack! But now that you mention it I have some pieces of 24x36 that are too big for it and I store those in the Blick box. At least they stay protected!
What an awesome find...and such a great idea!
Nice find on the paper rack... I'm enjoying seeing your oil experiments too and hope you are enjoying painting them. (Most of my paper is in the Blick boxes, too)
craigslist.org is my go-to place for everything! I recently picked up 2 metal flat file units and could have had a 3rd if I had room. If there's something in particular I really want I'll set up a google alert. Thanks for the great blog!
Thanks everyone! I forgot about Craigslist! I know someone who got a printing press on craigslist for a steal! Need to remember to search there!
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