Design a studio that will make your ideas flow

If you have a question for Luke about design and stylish living, email him at lukeedward.hall@ft.com. Follow him on Instagram @lukeedwardhall

I have a small space in my home that I would like to use as a painting studio. It has good light. Do you have any ideas for designing studio spaces to maximise creativity?

Last February, I had the extremely lucky opportunity to spend a morning at the late, great Howard Hodgkin’s studio in Bloomsbury. I’ve always loved Hodgkin’s paintings: colour is my thing, and I find his use of it completely thrilling. His canvases, filled with delicious layers of intensely hued smears, waves and squiggles, seem to me like kaleidoscopic jewels, fireworks exploding, glistening chunks of mineral.

His studio, an old dairy, is one of the most remarkable spaces I’ve been in. I left grey, imposing Bloomsbury at the door and stepped into a light-filled space: all brilliant gleaming walls, old ironwork and frosted glass.

What delighted me perhaps even more than the extraordinary space and light was the combination of furniture: not many pieces, but some lovely, interesting things. I’m not sure which items lived here while Hodgkin was alive and working, but old pictures still reveal an eclectic mix.

When I visited I found a beautifully ornate 18th-century Italian gilt-wood console table next to a giant, contemporary circular sofa covered in a fabric depicting oversized stylised tulips on a black background, one of Hodgkin’s own fabrics for the interiors company Designers Guild, I believe. These were accompanied by scruffy chairs, canvases propped against walls and boxes of paints.

Hodgkin’s studio has been on my mind recently, mainly because I have recently signed a lease on my own new studio, which I’ve just moved into. It’s a space in a converted farm building not far from my home, and I’ve spent the past few weeks dreaming up plans for its interior, and thinking in general about what one needs to surround oneself with to allow the creative juices to best flow.

I’m pleased to hear that your room has good light. Good light for a studio is key, of course. Naturally, this doesn’t have to mean a large converted dairy building with a glass ceiling in central London.

My new farm building features a mixture of brick and white-painted walls, which I’m going to leave as they are. I love colour, but I’m in the mood for white walls, which I’m hoping will bounce light around and work as a blank canvas for ideas to form upon.

Some well-chosen pieces of furniture will be of huge benefit. Think of Hodgkin’s studio: you’ll want useful and beautiful things. I’ve decided to limit myself to a couple of new (old) pieces for my space. I’ll keep my existing desk, but I’ve acquired a large table for spreading things out: fabric samples and sketchbooks, books and magazines . . . 

One thing I’ve learnt from working at my dining table at home for the past year is that this kind of large, flat surface is extremely useful. My table is a 1970s number, originally sold by Heal’s, in golden oak with a metal base.

I liked the idea of metal as a contrast to all the brick and beams, which is why I’ve also bought simple metal shelving units from Hay. I love the kind that Hay makes: inexpensive and industrial feeling, with an element of fun (yes, shelves can be fun) due to the range of colours available. I went for pale-blue lacquered steel. Keeping things such as books and materials in order will help to allow the creative mind to roam free.

Saying this, my workspaces always end up a bit of a mess, but I believe a combination of order and mess is key, crucial even, when it comes to getting lost in a creative vortex with the aim of making something worthwhile.

(Could be a drawing, could be a pavlova, because I’m the same in the kitchen: I’ll use every pot and pan available and there will be splatters up the wall by the time I’m done, but this is half the fun. I understand why that idea of clearing up the kitchen as you go is helpful, but I’m more of an in-the-moment, head-in-a-wild-spin kind of a cook and maker.)

What else? Plants, absolutely. I’m thinking of the sculptor Barbara Hepworth’s glorious studio in Cornwall, which is open to the public in more normal times, with its greenery, both in the adjoining garden and inside the light-filled workspace.

The dream studio situation would be to have a room that spills out into a garden and, in fact, at one point I considered building a kind of fabulous hut at the end of my own garden, but for various reasons my plans couldn’t materialise. The next best thing for me might be rows of potted geraniums.

Finally, I say I like the idea of white walls but one of my favourite rooms in the world has to be the studio at Charleston Farmhouse in East Sussex, built in 1925 and used by Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant.

With its dazzling palette of dusty blues and pinks, brown and lime, not to mention its collections of homely furniture, objects and trinkets, it’s basically a highly cosy sitting room with the addition of an easel or two. Who could fail to be inspired in a room like this?

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