a sketching pause while cleaning

Yesterday I cleaned up my art space in the back room. Or rather, I cleaned up this portion of the space: an oak taboret on wheels that Bill built for me years ago that sits next to my old desk. So of course I had to draw it in my journal. 😂

Yes, that is a ceramic pet dish acting as a water container! With the addition of my corgi, we needed a larger water dish for pets so the old one joined my art supplies. I just need to remember to empty it so the cats don’t drink dirty paint water!

Several old wooden boxes hold various supplies — the oldest one on an underneath shelf is filled with ink bottles and cartridges. It came from my grandfather’s printing shop and once held metal typeset letters.

This back room in our wee barn-house is a combination studio, library, office, laundry room, and cats’ room (where they can eat without a corgi interfering with them!). I have lots more cleaning to do, especially the wall of built-in bookshelves.

After posting this, I went back to the Dorothy L. Sayers novel I am currently reading. This conversation between Lord Peter Wimsey and his friend Charles Parker of Scotland Yard caught my eye. It’s been years since 9th grade Latin class — I had to look that bit up!

In the context of Wimsey’s character, it made me laugh so I jotted it down.

By the way, that desk of mine has some family history as well. It was once covered with red paint and stood in my grandfather’s barber shop with a great antique cash register on top of it. I had it stripped back to wood and have used it ever since as a desk . . . or a table to hold my sewing machine.