ITAP-2

Managing a creative environment

For the visual creative having a comfortable creative environment is paramount as creativity is largely influenced by the working environment.The environment that a creative will choose to work will differ greatly depending on the person, so it's important that one must find or even create for themselves a place where they will work to the best of their ability. So from looking at the chosen creative environments of different artists I have seen a range of different workspaces in which they produce their work, ranging from hi-tec studios equipped with the latest equipment such a drawing tablets, macs' etc to really small and quite cluttered rooms that are saturated with examples of previous work and reference material while others opt for quite large spaces to work in that are quite bland, organized and quite clinical looking.
For me personally  my ideal creative environment is my bedroom as I've found that in order for me to create to the best of my ability I need to be as comfortable as possible as my ideas seem to flow alot better,my creative environment is a sort of amalgamation of the previous workspaces that i mentioned for example, I like to surround myself with previous work and as much reference material as possible as I've found that it allows to create/recreate images much more accurately than if I was to draw exclusively from my imagination, my reference material ranges from books on the human body and anatomy to books on drawing techniques and even comic books,manga and tattoo magazines have all been invaluable sources to use for reference material. I also think that it is important that a workspace should be kept neat and tidy as things such as drawing materials and reference materials are readily available and easy to find  as clutter fan be quite frustrating especially when trying to find equipment.
 my laptop is also a key element within my workspace as having quick and easy access to the internet is highly important in collecting information and keeping up to date with the work of other visual creatives, I also keep a games console in my room and though some may view this as being highly counter productive towards my artwork I like to take short breaks especially if i'm particularly stuck on an idea as creating pieces of work can be quite stressful at times and also because in my opinion a creative environment should be a fun area to work in and shouldn't be too bland and clinical as I find it harder to create in such environments.
another key element is my small (but steadily growing) graphic novel and manga collection partly because they can be used them as a source of inspiration as far as how the narrative is conveyed through the images.

so here is an example of the workspace of one of my favourite illustrators Chris Parks.

what I like about his workspace is that its clean and slightly clinical in a way, but its covered in examples of his previous work, he also has a small collection of magazines and is equipped with drawing tablets and computers and because of the somewhat humorous nature of some of his creations his workspace is almost a kind of visual/ creative playground and would be my ideal workspace.