When you have an abundance of ideas it's important to put them in some sort or order. Let me walk you through how I organize myself. Currently, I have 110 images that I would like to turn into paintings. With each image I place it in a plastic sleeve protector, assign an inventory number and arranged them in order. When I'm ready to choose new paintings I go to my big book of ideas and pick out some images. Often I choose a theme, like a particular variety of flower, or by the size of canvas. I remove those sleeve protectors from the big book and place them in a smaller, working, binder. From the smaller binder of work I create a master list documenting the square inch size, the canvas size and the likely time it will take for me to paint that image. Then I go to my calendar and block out the time using post it flags. This really helps me see how many paintings I can get done during a week or a month. This is so helpful for a couple of reasons. 1. I avoid the over scheduling that was happening before; 2. I stop my self criticism before it gets started. Before getting organized I would look at what I had accomplished in the month and always feel like I should have done more. Now with the estimated times to complete a painting I can see what is realistically possible. For example, if I'm working 6 hours a day I can complete (1) 6 x 8 painting. That's it. My self criticism would have me believe that I could get more paintings completed in that time. Not possible. This might seem like a lot of work and this nerdy artist loves this part. Getting organized feels so grounding. The other problem I have is that I've collected almost 60 canvases for these paintings. Where do you store them so you aren't tripping all over them?  You store them in your new canvas storage rack on wheels, of course. My husband helped me put this together a couple of weekends ago. Oh my gosh! I was so happy. I think I cried.
As you can see I have various sized all lined up in their cubbies. I can find the sized easily and they are not getting damaged. So happy. This is what the nuts and bolts of getting organized looks like for me. It feels amazing to have this all in place. Now I can relax, check my calendar, see the painting that is scheduled, and get down to business. Prior to all this organizing I wasted a lot of time fiddling around, trying to figure out what comes next. I hope you have enjoyed this tour of my organizing system. If you'd like to see more of what I'm doing, join my email list.
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Ciel Ellis.
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