My studio is a converted one car garage. When I moved into my new house about six years ago I was painting in a shared loft space in a dilapidated old office building so I didn't set aside a room to paint in. The loft space was great and it was only 70 dollars a month rent, but eventually the building changed owners and I had to find a place to do my work. I insulated the garage floor to ceiling, cut in a door and window on the side and made it into a really great space except for one problem; no heat. For the past few years I would tough it out using a space heater and painting with a coat on, or I would work inside on an interior on the really cold days. These are not ideal conditions for making art so this winter I decided to create a mini studio in the dormer area of my bedroom. A space that is about four feet by six feet. I decided I would work on small pieces and take this time to work out some new ideas on smaller canvases. You know, try to turn a negative into a positive. For the most part it's worked out pretty well. I sit on my exercise bench which is placed over my rowing machine with a small easel kind of wedged in between. I even have my wife posing in this little niche for me, once a week. After this I now know that I can paint anywhere; phone booths, back seat of a car, airplane bathrooms, storage rental units, etc;. But lately I'm feeling a real itch to get back into my studio, I'm getting restless, I;m a mule kicking in my stall.
       For the last couple of weeks, every morning with my coffe, I've been reading "Carlson's Guide To Landscape Painting". What a great start to the day. I recommend this book to every painter know matter what your choice of subject matter. He has a positive no nonsense tone that is never dogmatic and is meant to inspire rather than discourage. He has a lot of useful tips on judging values, painting tapering forms, what happens to the space around things, that I'm sure will have a marked effect on the way that I look at the world. His pintings are so strong that even in black and white they have a lot of "color". It's made me eager to get out and do some landscape painting again. But unlike Carlson, I won't be doing any winter scenes. I don't know how he did it. I could never stand outside and paint in the freezing cold. I once made a painting when it was 45 degrees out and I still shiver at the memory.
         I'm thinking I'll head for the beach. I did a few beach scenes last year and I think I was getting onto something so I'm hoping to pick up the thread of where I left off. Painting at the beach, of course, has it's own challenges. Sand gets into everything, including your paint, and staring at those white hot sand dunes can cause you to see mirages. Usually I look for a secluded area away from the sunbathers, which of course is the same location the fisherman are looking for or sex addicts. Sometimes the fisherman will have something nice to say to me;" hey Van Gogh, what the heck do you think you're doing". As a fisherman myself I know that  the coded reply is "what the heck does it look like?". I'm trying to get away from landscapes with too much green in them. I don't mind some green, but I don't want to have a bunch of paintings with overall green color schemes. It's not one of my favorite colors. I don't even have a tube of green paint. I always mix my own from yellow and blue because I find tube greens are just too acidic for most paintings.
      I happened to look at the extended forecast for next week and it looks like another round of below freezing temoeratures is on it's way. Aaargh! I have to get out of that bedroom. My wife has offered some suggestions about possibly installing a gas line for a fake fireplace, or installing a pot-bellied stove (how bohemian would that be!) but I'm worried about adequate ventilation in such an enclosed space and I'm leary of having any kind of open flame around solvents. I'm also sort of environmentally conscious and I don't think I'd feel good about spewing ash and wood smoke into my neighbors vicinity. So I guess for now I'll have to continue like a penitent monk from the early Renaissance. You can call me Fra Sullivano.