It's a myth that your work-area has to be a disaster. It is not impossible to keep your work area clean. Certain types of art are, by nature, messy (for example, pottery). That doesn't have to mean that it has to look like a kiln exploded in your workshop.

It's a secret embarrassment of many artists, something that doesn't often come up for discussion. It gets written off as a topic more suited for housecleaning than art. After all, when you chat with other artists, you'd rather spend your time discussing technique... not the fact that your work area is a disaster. Whether you're a high-school art prodigy, a college student with a course-load of fine art classes, or a professional artist, managing your diverse and often-messy cache of art supplies can become a secret nightmare.

A messy work area can also be very frustrating. It is impossible to get your work done quickly if you can't find anything that you need in order to get it done in the first place. This can have a negative impact on your bottom line: your income. The faster, more efficiently, and better you get your work done, the more money you are going to be able to make. Period. I will also openly admit that I personally feel far less inclined to do work when doing work is inconvenient. The easier and more convenient you make it for yourself to do work, the more work you will do. The more cluttered and frustrating your work space it is, the more likely you are to go "I'll do it later" and walk away. The best way to get a lot of work done is to make it as easy as possible for yourself to do your work. This article isn't just for people with a dedicated workshop, though. It easily applies to art students and hobbyists.

It's a misconception that building a nice work area takes tons of money. While your equipment itself may be expensive, you don't have to spend a ton of money organizing your work area and art supplies. In fact, I'd advise against it - the less money you spend getting everything in order, the more you'll have to spend on the REALLY FUN things (like jigsaws). Here are five ways to cheaply organize your art supplies:

1. Set aside a dedicated work-area

This is an area for art, and your art supplies. Nothing but art supplies goes in this area, and art supplies do not go anywhere else. This includes dedicated storage for your art supplies. The more they get mixed in with other things, the less likely it is that you will be able to find them when you really need them.

This doesn't have to be a separate room, or the garage (although both of these options are really nice if you have the luxury). It can just be a corner of a rec room, a bedroom, a closet. A special table dedicated for these purposes will also help, as you won't have to worry about destroying other furniture with paint, glue, clay, etc. Make sure that the table is used only for art, and art projects. It will make keeping it clear and protecting anything that is drying/curing/etcetera a much easier task.

2. Make sure that you can see everything

Many art supplies are expensive - any broke college student knows that! Even the cheap ones add up after a while. How often is it that you have desperately needed a specific tool and been unable to find it any of your toolboxes? How often has your artwork suffered because of this?

For a long time, I kept the majority of my art supplies in opaque tackle-boxes. They were cheap, they had compartments, they did the job. The problem was that I would forget what was in my tackle-boxes, only to come across something that I really could have used months ago and didn't know that I had. This can be expensive, because you keep buying the same art supplies over and over again, when you could have avoided the problem if you had just remembered that you had them in the first place - and knew where to find them.

Nobody can keep a perfect catalog of all of the supplies that they have in their head. A system of labeling your boxes or keeping inventory on paper is annoying, time-consuming, and ultimately unwieldy. One of the best things that I ever did was to start keeping all of my tools and supplies in exclusively clear plastic bins and toolboxes. You don't have to buy special boxes for this task - a trip to the Dollar Store or Walmart will net you a load of cheap, clear plastic boxes. There's no need to go to a specialty art store and buy boxes and toolboxes dedicated to this task.

Don't look for these in the arts & crafts section, as anything you find there is going to be overpriced. Go to the Homes section, and check out the Hardware section as well. Often, there are very cheap tool-boxes and tackle-boxes with some nifty clear compartments. Tackle-boxes are especially useful. Just because they were originally intended for fishing lures doesn't make them less suitable for storing art supplies. The compartments are great for organizing your odds and ends.

Odds are, not everything you have (or most things you have) will not fit neatly in a tackle-box. A slightly more expensive option that has paid off for itself in convenience is to buy the small dresser-like plastic storage compartments with clear drawers that you can find in the Homes section. They come in several sizes, and are useful for holding everything from pencils to electronic parts. One of the things that I did to make my sketch-pads more manageable was to put them in a clear plastic dresser. Some of the organizers have drawers that are the perfect size for printer paper and notebooks.

To manage my many drawing pens, pencils, and markers, which long languished in the bottom of a tackle-box, I bought some pencil cases from Walmart for 50 cents apiece and dedicated a case to each kind of drawing implement. The cases fit nicely in the drawers of the organizer, and stack nicely in plastic bins. If you can find clear or semitransparent cases, even better. I label the outside of the cases so that I know what is in each pencil case. Finding the right pen or pencil used to take a while, now it takes about 15 seconds. You don't have to buy special cases for this though, although the hard cases will protect your more delicate pencils better. Large zip-lock bags are also excellent for this task. They're also great for storing your tubes of paint, erasers, etc.

An exception to the "put everything in clear bins" rule is some paints. Some of them are light-sensitive and shouldn't be out sitting in the light all of the time. My solution was to put them in clear bins and then drape a dark cloth over them. Even better if you have a cupboard you can put them in. This way, I can open my cupboard and peek under the cloth to see exactly what paint I have, without worrying about light destroying the pigments.

3. Label everything clearly

Even if you can see into your drawers, label what is in them anyway. Get a piece of masking tape and write a list of the things contained in your drawer or bin - "Micron Pens, Prismacolors, Grease Pencils". Affix this to the front of every drawer, and the top and side of every bin. It seems pretty dumb - after all, you remember what's in your bins, and you can see what's in them, right? Well, when you have 20 bins and 16 drawers and you're trying to find something quickly, these labels will help you find it much more quickly than your memory can.

People may comment on it, they may try to make fun of you. It doesn't matter, let 'em. The same friends who thought that my labeled drawers were silly are the ones who marvel at how quickly I can get things done.

4. Get a peg-board, and a cork-board or dry-erase board

A peg-board doesn't cost much, but it keeps your tools off of the tables/counters and in plain sight. Both of these things are important. You should be able to pick up a decent-sized peg board at a hardware store for $15-20. It is a more flexible alternative than screwing hooks into your walls, is easy to install, and will save you a lot of grief when you are looking through all of your toolboxes something and can't find it.

A peg-board is useful for more than just things like hammers and drills. It is awesome for hanging rulers, T-squares, L-squares, and larger-sized paint brushes. You don't have to worry about your rulers getting bent, and you won't be panicking because you can't find your French Curve.

The cork-board is great for pinning up things like lists, notes, and reference pictures. It doesn't seem all that important, but it's valuable when you need to keep track of things like schedules and appointments, and is as much a part of your work area as your pens and pencils. A dry-erase board can serve the same function, helping you keep track of your schedule and projects. The reason this is important is because your To-Do list and projects are right there in front of you constantly, and it keeps projects from "slipping between the cracks" and getting forgotten about (something that can cost you money and reputation).

5. Always keep your table/counters/work surfaces CLEAR

I know that this sounds basic, but it gets ignored so often: when you are done with something, put it away! Some things must be left alone on the table in order to set, dry, etc. That's fine. What isn't fine is hammers, glue, tubes of paint, brushes, etc. A tube of paint here, a few pencils there -- "you'll put them away later" -- and then, suddenly, you have a mountain of miscellaneous art supplies sitting right on top of the work space that you need to use. You'll feel far less inclined to get your work done if you have to clear a heap of junk off of your work space instead of just being able to sit down and finish your task.

After you've gone to the effort of arranging them, 90% of keeping your supplies organized is just picking up after yourself. The easiest way to stay organized is to not have to keep organizing your things in the first place. Putting something away immediately when you are done with it will save you time down the road, because you are more likely to remember exactly where it goes if you just used it. Putting away a whole heap of things when you can't quite remember exactly where each one goes will eat up more time.

A messy work-space is a slippery slope - the messier it gets, the more quickly it gets messier. Cleaning it up becomes a serious chore. Save yourself the grief, and just put your pens away when you are done with them - even if you're going to use them again later today, or tomorrow. Sometimes things come up and you don't get right back to work, and that's when the mess starts creeping in.

Hopefully, these tips will help you keep track of your art supplies a little bit more easily. Keep things where you can see them, know exactly what you have, keep your containers and drawers clearly labeled, and keep your work-space clear, you will be able to get your work done more quickly and efficiently while you avoid spending unnecessary money buying items that you already own.