5 BEST INVESTMENTS I'VE MADE FOR MY STUDIO

After moving to a new house from a one bedroom flat, I was lucky enough to be able to convert one of the rooms into a home studio. Aside from university, I had never really had a proper space to work on my art.

When I was home back in Lebanon, I used to have a desk in my room (I mainly did drawings and smaller works). And after moving to London, I had a small - but quite efficient - artsy corner by the windows in our living room. So now you can imagine how ecstatic I was about moving into a 2.5 x 3 m room ALL. TO. MY. SELF. And I was so ready to customize the space.

Without further ado, here are 5 best investments I have personally made for my studio space:

MABEF M/08 EASEL:

You see, we artists have these days where we get on our laptops to do some work, which gradually turns into a process of creating a mental wishlist of all the art supplies and tools that make us go into this trance. Some drooling may also be involved.

To me, a sturdy easel was one of these items. You know these easels with the amazing physiques that can bend backwards and do things your regular easel wouldn’t do. But I always thought that they were just out of my league Until one day I can across an amazing website called ArtDiscount where I found all sorts of artsy stuff for great prices, including this beautiful MABEF EASEL.

Honestly this easel is the best one I’ve had so far. I’ve only had the more basic ones to be fair, which were quite handy for sure and quite economic at an average of 20GBP, but because I work with larger scale artworks, I definitely felt like I needed a major upgrade to something more heavy-duty. Now with that being said, even if you work with small artworks but have the extra cash to be boujee, this is absolutely worth it.

2. ALEX DRAWERS:

Another great investment I’ve made for my studio. I wanted a storage unit that can had mobility and I could use as a table as well. IKEA’s Alex fit these criteria perfectly. Once I got it assembled (I lied, my husband assembled it for me while I cheered him on), I was quite surprised how much it can actually fit.

The Alex range from IKEA are generally very good for storage especially for a small or medium sized studio space. I basically have all my paints (oil, acrylics, watercolours, etc.), tools, some larger brushes, palette knives, and lots of misc items all stored away in those drawers.

3. RASKOG TROLLEY:

This particular item is quite popular with artists around the world, and for good reason. Once again, this RASKOG trolley ticks a few boxes for me: it’s mobile, easy to store away, on-hand storage, plus I often use it to actually prep my palette on it when I’m working. The good thing about it is that IKEA offers a topper for it, which I’ve bought along with it. So, for me, instead of using the top tier to put large items, I use it to store smaller items underneathe the topper, and then I place my palette.

I store some of my most used sketchbooks in the bottom, as well as mediums that I would reach for while I’m working like turps and other mediums - basically items that I don’t want to store horizontally in drawers.

4. TABLE:

This is the third item on my list that came from IKEA as well, and it’s a combo item: the LINNMON Table Top paired with the FINNVARD Trestle. Now this was a bit pricy for a table (total was 75GBP for the three items), and in all fairness I think I would’ve gone for something a bit smaller looking back at it, but I can’t deny that having a table/desk is definitely a must in any studio. Whether you work with drawing, painting, or digital mediums; every artist needs a desk space for all sorts of purposes.

There are sort of similar options from IKEA that are slightly cheaper. For example, the ODDVALD Trestle is very similar to the FINNVARD one, but it’s cheaper. I’ve also had a smaller table in the past from IKEA which literally cost me 16GBP which is the LINNMON 60 x 100 cm table top paired with 4 of the ADILS legs.

Note: the table played a very important role when I welcomed my refugee husband to the studio when he started working from home due to COVID-19. That also explains the cool code showing on the desktop screen in the studio shots above. Buy tables, save lives from homeful desklessness.

5. STUDIO LIGHT // SOFTBOX:

To break the pattern, this one is actually not from IKEA. It’s from Amazon. My studio room actually gets a good bit of natural light from the window, but because I live in the UK, most of the times the sky is just cloudy and I feel like my eyes hurt from trying so hard to focus on mixing paints when there isn’t enough light, and the light I have in the room is yellow which isn’t necessarily ideal. This is why I decided to invest in a softbox. I am so happy I did. I use it most of the time, even when there’s a lot of light coming from my window, I always appreciate the extra lighting. Plus I use it for my photography as well, and it’s great for taking reference images. This one that I bought comes with everything you need, including the bulb and light-disfusing cover.

So there you have it folks, these are the 5 best investments I’ve made for my studio. Now of course I’m sure that not everyone is going to agree with everything on this list, and that’s because every artist has their own process and their own preferences when it comes to organizing and setting up their studio. I’m sure that if I move to a different space, I’ll probably need a slightly different setup (either add to this list or omit some things). I think this is another exciting thing about developing as an artist over the years, and it’s seeing how the workspace develops and changes along the way!