You never know what you’ll use for art.

I’m working on a drawing with lots of little text. It’s big enough to be uncomfortable on a table, and I can’t work on a wall as my gel pens don’t defy gravity. So I get the best results working on the floor, with me kneeling on top of the drawing. It has been very helpful to have:

A yoga mat. Kneeling on the concrete floors would have been torturous. Folded over, the mat has been a secret weapon in my drawing endurance.

A 4″-roll of masking tape / homemade anti-ant moat. A previous artist-in-residence left this super wide tape. It was actually too wide for my needs until rainstorms pushed ants into the studio. I’m using inks that smudge easily; wayward, tiny feet traversing the paper would not do. I made an ant-repelling “moat” of sticky-side out masking tape, big enough to fit the drawing, yoga mat, and me. Non-toxic, effective, and free!

Hyperflexion. Only during a recent visit to the acupuncturist did I learn that what I assumed was a normal range of flexibility is not. (I have a particularly well-honed creativity for discounting physical merits; I’d figured that I could easily touch my toes because I have short legs.) It probably helps to be limber in long days spent curled over drawing 12-point text.