NEW Art Book Studio Image Project

A new art book arrived to my studio this week. The Art Studio Image Project published by Friend of The Artist, featuring artist’s studios, worldwide. The Studio Image Project aims to uncover some of the hidden stories behind these studio spaces and their role in their inhabitants’ artistic practices. As more images were received for the project, an overarching theme emerged: artists see their studios as a sanctuary.

The Studio Image Project, 2022 published by Friend of The Artist created by Ty Bishop

Pleased to participate in this project with a photo from the sanctuary of my studio. Over the years I have come to photograph my final moments before completing a painting, these moments have become known as, ‘The Chair of Contemplation’, where I sit in my orange studio chair and review my paintings and decide on final touches. These moments have become performance art as I inhabit a persona that relates to the tone of the painting.

The Studio Image Project, 2022 featuring Brandy Saturley Studio, Victoria BC

My studio is a sanctuary, it is a place to disappear into, with music pumping, it is time to enter the flow. It is a place where artist’s play, practice, work and make Art. A place where ideas, dreams, writings, photos and sketches take flight and become real tangible things. It where we begin technically, and as we move beyond our blueprints, the world melts away around us, and it becomes nothing but us and the Art. When I can hear nothing but the sound of my paintbrush scratching on the canvas, I am where I need to be to make the best and purest Art I want. It is where I move beyond the point of me and the artwork, and the painting and I become one, and we move together. It is much like a dance, only this dance is of colour, light, form, tone and texture. It is where I begin in the shadows and finish with the light. It is all about reaching the light and coming up for air. This is what happens in my art studio.

Brandy Saturley in her Vancouver Island Art studio.

See more of my finished artwork here.

A Day in The Life of An Artist: documenting the creative process

An artists diary – inside the studio of Brandy Saturley

At the end of the work day, I take whatever paint I have left on my palette and I use it to make a small abstract painting on a torn out page of high-gloss magazine paper. I think I began this ritual about five years ago and it shows a day in the life of an Artist. I found that it gave me a time at the end of the day to break concentration and freely create something loose and immediate, a mental stretch of sorts to end a day of highly concentrated painting. Instead of scraping the paint off my palette and saving it, something that is very hard to do with acrylic paints, the leftover paint was helping to birth a new creation. Each page has come to represent a ‘day in the life’ of a painting, a painting diary of sorts. These 8×10 abstract paintings were forming a diary and a dialogue about working as a painter. Over the years I have saved thousands of these pages, most survived, not all as some became stuck to one another and i was unable to save them, and some I cut into shapes that I am certain will be used in future paintings, perhaps paintings with collage elements worked into the composition. A painting diary is a wonderful thing, it offers a record of my palette over the past few years, painting swatches if you will, a journal of colours.

From Vincent Van Gogh to Georgia O’ Keeffe, keeping a diary, or journal, has always been a crucial part of the artist’s life. For some, it helps formulate a better conceptual understanding of works created through sometimes intuitive processes. For others, it can be a reference for future art making. Whether a detailed written journal like that of Van Gogh, or a more visual diary of sketches, studies and even colour swatches, journals are a necessary part of the creative process and provide fuel for future discovery.

I recently gathered most of my ‘abstract palette pages’ and arranged them for a photo shoot in my studio. I spread the pages from floor to ceiling, running up my studio walls, integrating them with paintings in progress, the result is a vivid and energetic environment. How I imagine the inside of my mind looks at any given time. These photos show a glimpse inside my creative process, which heavily relies on intuition these days. A peek inside the artists’ process.

The Artists’ Diary – in the studio of Brandy Saturley

Behind the scenes – in the studio of Brandy Saturley

Photo Shoot – in the studio of Brandy Saturley – image courtesy the artist

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NEW Art Book Studio Image Project

A Day in The Life of An Artist: documenting the creative process