Final Details: The Supply Table

The final corner of the studio: the supply table. Looking at pictures of artists studios through time I came to the conclusion that artists are either pretty organized and neat or a total mess when it comes to their space. I seem to fall into the total mess category. I initially. wanted to go the direction of this artist being a total mess, but decided that she prefers things simple and somewhat clean.

The ladder is something that I’ve had in my stash for a few years, I’m not exactly sure where I got it. Two of the picture frames (one rectangle and the oval) are from Earth and Tree Miniatures. The other rectangular frame was made by me. I had to guild them with paint.

The table was ordered from Miniatures.com . I didn’t like the original top, so I softened the glue in the microwave and pulled it off. Unfortunately, once the glue was soft the whole thing fell apart. It was pretty easy to glue back together. I ended up replacing the top with a piece of walnut.  I painted the rest of the unfinished wood to match the walnut coloring. I never have luck getting the stain to look right, so I usually faux finish with acrylic paint. I added some black paint to give it a bit of a patina and then a light sanding to give it some wear.

The journals and drawing are just quick little sketches. The plate full of paint tubes was picked up at Earth and Tree and then dirtied up with paint. The little white cup is from Miniatures.com . It had a shiny plastic finish that I was not happy with, so I sanded it and it ended up looking a little bit more like pottery.

The cubby storage piece was made by me. It’s made from bass wood and painted with acrylic paint. The various bottles and jars were picked up all over the place. The flowers are more paper. kits from The Miniature Garden on Etsy. The earthen ware crock was made with a miniature plastic canister, some masking tape, super glue, and baking powder. The. little tiki is a bead I had purchased on Etsy many years ago. I have one left for this year’s project. Then I’ll have to find more. The paper is typewriter paper cut to size. The paintbrushes and paint tubes are all made by me.

The glass jar was purchased from Miniatures.com. When adding paint to this canister, and other storage containers, I found that using water color paint worked best. I wanted the paint to look transparent and the water color paint did exactly that.

Under the table is where she hides her mess. Crates full of old journals, unused frames, jars of chemicals, and paint are stacked up so that they are out of the way. Some of the crates were bought and others were made by me. All of them were aged and painted to look well used. The books were bought and then altered to look worn and loved.

More miniature news papers waiting for their turn to be used. My favorite Easter egg in this build is one of the newspapers. The headline is  Godzilla Attacks. You can just see it poking out there in the back. The rags were colored using water colors and then molded into shape with spray starch.

The picture rails on both sides of the room are made with brass tubing and pieces of card stock.

And that’s the inside of the studio. I had so much fun building it. It’s opened up a whole new world on how to approach miniatures. I love the idea of just capturing a tiny piece of a much bigger whole. I have plans to explore that idea further this year. So, we’ll see what happens.