Creative Spaces: Coloring Nook Inspiration

 

What does your coloring nook look like?

Today I want to talk about our creative “nooks,” or the dedicated spaces we build up around our creative passions!

For some of us, that nook is a desk or a table. Some of us spread our supplies out around us on the couch or in bed. Some of us have “mobile nooks” that let us work on our passions wherever we would like to! (Great for taking with you to your local coloring club!)

I asked around in some of my favorite social coloring hangouts for colorists to share their own coloring nooks to add to the collection, and I am so excited to share the amazing set of creative spaces I encountered!

If you are interested in sharing your own coloring nook, please do!! I am planning to return to this post periodically to add new photos and stories to it. The more the merrier! Share your coloring nook by sending me a photo and a brief description of your space in a Facebook message or by replying to my newsletter, which you can subscribe to below. Both colorists and coloring book authors are welcome!

Where possible I have tried to link to the products shown in these setups so that if they inspire you, it is easier for you to create something similar! Please understand that I often don’t know the exact product (unless the colorist was kind enough to share with me!) so the linked products are not always the same item shown. Just so you know, this page contains some affiliate links. That means that if you buy something through one of my links, at no additional cost to you, you’ll be helping support Cleverpedia. Thank you so much!

Mike’s Studio Space

I love all the natural light in Mike Jongste‘s studio! Here’s what Mike had to say about his creative nook:

This is my workspace. I love working in a clean and organized space. The daylight lamp is really awesome. It was €150 — but so handy and the best for taking pictures. Just bought the lightpad! [second photo]

One of the central features of Mike’s setup, of course, is that lovely angled work surface! Angled surfaces like these can make coloring easier on your back, because you don’t have to hunch over a desk to get closer to the image. Here’s a similar one on Amazon. He’s also added a clip-on lamp and multiple plastic drawer units to hold supplies. The lightpad in the second photo is for tracing and is similar to this one.

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Mandy’s Rolling Desk

Mandy has the ultimate coloring workstation! The desk is on wheels, so she can roll it wherever she’d like. All of her art supplies are neatly organized and perfectly within reach! Here she shows us around the desk:

Not the best yet it is sure a joy to me. The wooden stands are by Sketchers Companion from Amazon. They will even drill the holes wider if you tell them you have Derwents. They have three heights with two rows per height. You can really see them nicely.

The book is a Max Lucado coloring book. Lovely. Amongst several other coloring books I have a coloring Bible called “Inspire.”

On the left of my table are my gel pens in two racks [each] holding 60. On the back are pencils, two racks of 120 and one rack of 60 pencils. On the far right are pens that I have up on a firm wedge of foam to keep them at an angle I can see them all. The Copics are in front of that. On the closest right are two sets of 25 Mica pens. They’re great glitter pens.

You know, I think our creative centers evolve wherever we are in life. They are created by our need to create and be surrounded by color. It is a joy to see so many different ways to create.

Couldn’t have said it better myself!

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Cristin’s Coloring Nook

Cristin Frey is a coloring book illustrator, and she set up her workstation at a corner desk. I love the way she’s used a wine rack to organize her art supplies, including Prismacolor art markers and Micron pens.

You can check out Cristin’s latest coloring book, The Art of Not Giving a F*ck, here on Amazon!

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Shilpa’s Coloring Nook

Here’s a great example of using a small space to its full potential! Shilpa’s swatch book is open to the page she needs for her Derwent Inktense colored pencils, and she has all the pencils organized neatly by color in a colored pencil carrying bag. (Want more ideas for organizing your colored pencils? Check out my post with colored pencil organization ideas!) She also has an LED lamp similar to this one by TaoTronics to light up her work area.

My coloring nook! This used to be my husband’s computer desk before I took over. I’m currently doing the Paris page from Magical City, following the tutorial by Peta Hewitt. So I have my swatch book open to Inktense, my handy water brush and a paper towel on my desk. All my colouring books and supplies are in the shelf on the bottom right. Whatever I need for the current book, I tend to keep it on the table. I’m using a chopping board for resting my book since this makes it easy to turn the book around for hard to reach areas. I can also carry it to the couch if I’m watching TV.

You can see more of Shilpa’s colored pages in her Google+ collection The Magic of Color, or on her blog!

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Linda’s Coloring Corner

WOW — when Linda shared her setup I was blown away! She designed her own pen and pencil rack to keep everything at an arm’s reach.

I made my pencil rack out of 3 Wilton baking cooling racks. Found them at Bed Bath and Beyond. Next I went to hardware store where I had them cut 4 pieces of threaded 3/8 rod to about 4″ lengths. Used 3/8 nuts and washers to assemble. Offset each rack by one square when assembling so pencils could be at angle. Had piece of thin paneling (scrap) cut to size of rack. Put on back rack to work as pencil stop. Bolts through back piece and racks. Used wing nuts and screw to attach front feet to balance rack. The rack is 14″x20″ and holds hundreds of pens and pencils!

Such an incredible idea, and in the end, not that hard to create your own massive pen and pencil stand with a little elbow grease! Linda shared some photos of the rack that show how it holds together:

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Tyra’s Coloring Station

This was a gift from my mom because she noticed I had art supplies spilling out all over the place!

This is actually a really neat desk! It has a top that can be flat or at an adjustable angle, and it’s on wheels so you can take it wherever you want to go. It also has cubbies to the left and right of the work surface for various types of supplies, a pullout tray under the desk, and a side storage area where you can stash books. Check it out on Amazon right here. She also has a tabletop easel propping up one of her coloring books.

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Leila’s Coloring Nook

Here is a photo of my desk, I use it mostly but sometimes I choose the bed instead. The work is the page that I’m currently working on.

Leila’s coloring nook is all set up for watercolors!

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Tammy’s Coloring Desk

Everything is neatly organized in Tammy’s coloring space! She has a fun pink and black color scheme going on, and all her supplies are sorted into Mason jars.

I try to keep it organized but I keep buying more stuff so I keep have to redo it!

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Jamie’s Coloring Nook

Even if you can only devote part of your desk to coloring, it can still make a great nook! Jamie’s got her colored pencils sorted into glasses by color, and plenty of space in front of the computer to color while watching a movie.

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Maria’s Coloring Nook

Love the layers of inspiration here!

For balance I’ve got one wall without anything — all white. That’s where I look for inspiration. At the moment my desk is in “creative but calm” working mode.

You can pick up a copy of Maria’s 2017 coloring calendar right here!

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Michelle’s Coloring Setup

Michelle’s coloring setup is compact and portable, with supplies in one basket and (mostly) books in the other.

This is my basket setup next to my couch. In front of it is a side table that has an Ott lamp from my craft room positioned over my seat on the couch. Because of chronic pain, I can’t sit up much and when I do, it can’t be in a traditional desk chair.

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Cheryl’s Coloring Nook

I recently ripped apart my home office to create a better space for my creative activities. I’m very pleased with the results. Several things changed, but the two biggest (and simplest) changes were: 1. Putting desk against the window so I can look out into my backyard while at desk and 2. Moving the computer and monitor off to one side. It was previously centered which is typical, but I realized that that position made the “business” part of my room way too prominent, and paperwork of the non-fun variety was taking way more space that it deserved. You can’t see, but to right of computer monitor is a small filing cabinet for the “business” supplies. The table to left of desk contains almost entirely the “fun” supplies. This configuration occurred a few weeks ago, and while still a WIP, I’m LOVING it.

I love that Cheryl gave the “fun” and creative side of the room more prominence!

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Lyn’s Coloring Nook

Lyn sorted her pencils by color so it is easier to grab what she needs at a glance!

Here’s my nook in the corner of my bedroom.

You can check out Lyn’s latest coloring book, Funky Fish ‘n Friends: Dream Doodles, right here on Amazon!

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Lee-Anne’s Coloring Desk

Lee-Anne’s setup gives her plenty of space to spread out and get down to business!

I have a tendency to spread out so I have this huge antique desk and my art table. The rest of the room hold stackable storage units, my easel and a bookcase. All the bins are full and they stretch up to four feet and I have four stacks. I colour, paint in oils and acrylics and I write mystery fiction. It all has to fit into this room!

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Andrea’s Coloring Desk

Andrea has organizers full of supplies in easy reach, a clipboard with a work in process, and I spy Cleverpedia up on her computer screen!!

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Marygayle’s Coloring Nook

When Marygale wants to color, she spreads out a binder full of colored pencils, a color swatch chart, and her computer on the kitchen table and gets to work!

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Tabitha’s Coloring Desk

Tabitha takes advantage of vertical space here by moving up!

Where I spend about 80% of my day! (I am a coloring book artist.) This is just what’s “out.” My big closet is stuff full of the things I don’t use often. I really need some bookshelves, more drawers, and more pencil holders!

Check out Tabitha’s latest coloring book, That 70s Coloring Book, right here on Amazon!

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Stacey’s Coloring Nook

Stacey takes her coloring nook with her wherever she goes by making it portable!

I use this lap board thing and my pens are in a bag, pencils are in a pencil keeper in my room. I can take my board wherever and the kids steal it for in the car on long trips.

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My Own Coloring Nook

And now… this is my own coloring nook! A few months ago I upgraded my old tiny computer desk to one that is almost twice as wide, so that I had a little more room to work. So, my old desk became my coloring nook!

I tend to actually keep the desk pretty clear when I’m not in the middle of working on something. But when I am in full coloring mode, this is what it generally looks like!

At the top left, the black rectangle with the funny LED face on it is actually my LED lamp. It is by the brand Phive, but they don’t make it anymore unfortunately. This LED lamp by TaoTronics is very similar though. I like that the light has different lighting modes (though I generally work with the whitest light) and a scale of brightness settings. The base also has two hinges so you can get it into exactly the right spot, or fold it up when it’s not in use. Since I’m right-handed, I like to keep my light on the left side of the desk so I am not blocking my own light with my hand.

Beside my light is my set of 96 Tombow brush pens, which I use in most of my coloring books. If you’ve read any of my other reviews, you are probably familiar with me using them!

Beside those are my Caran D’Ache Pablos. I switch out the pencil set I am using depending on what I am working on, but I tend to default to the Pablos.

I have a few other extraneous items to the right, including a mug full of miscellaneous pens and my x-acto knife, a pencil sharpener, an eraser, and a clear ruler that I use for cutting pages out of books or drawing straight lines.

I always keep a pad of paper handy for blotting my Tombows or testing color combinations. I keep meaning to make a swatch page but I always forget to actually do it, oops.

I do most of my coloring on top of an old clipboard that I’ve attached foam strips to to hold it in place on the desk. The book I colored a page from here is Color With Music: Nature’s Wonders.

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So… that’s all folks! Share your own coloring nook by sending me a photo and a brief description of your space in a Facebook message or by replying to my newsletter. And don’t forget to save your favorite spaces or the big image below to your organization and art supply boards on Pinterest!

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like…

How to Organize Your Colored Pencil Collection
The Ultimate Guide to Pain-Free Coloring

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