33,170. That is how many photos are on my laptop.

I have 12 little drawers full of snapshots collected and used for pencil drawing over the last 37 years. These are in the studio.

I have a filing cabinet full of photos taken, organized and used for oil paintings and murals over the past 18 years. These are in the workshop where I paint. A filing cabinet with folders is not an ideal organizational situation for photos. It takes too long to find what I need, time that would be better spent actually painting.

What’s a Central California artist to do?

Sort, toss, refile, reorganize, of course. This is best done in the house. (Well, happy days, now I have photo messes in all my buildings.)

One of those little 6-drawer cabinets will fit in the workshop shelves. Looks as if those shelves could also use a makeover.

I might need both of those little 6-drawer cabinets in the painting workshop. The photos for drawing in the studio might end up in envelope boxes or shoeboxes.

It’s a long process to get all these actual photos on paper into the proper places, easily accessible, and ready for painting. Remember, it is not wrong to paint from photographs. That’s what studio artists do. (Except when they are trying to make up stuff, bumbling along on challenging paintings.)