Why not build a drying cabinet? Just needs to be big enough for the
largest painting.

    Nick

On Sat, 09 Jul 2005 06:26:34 -0700, bruin70 wrote:

First, isolate your studio from the heating/cooling system of your
house. (I'm assuming your studio is in your home.)  Ducted, forced air
systems are very dirty.  They take the dust and hair and other airborne
particles from everywhere and evenly distribute it to all rooms.  The oil
impreganted, fiberglas filters that are normally used with these units are
pretty useless for filtering anything, but the largest particles,
relatively speaking. So, close off (not just close, but block) the
registers serving your studio and install it's own isolated system.  A
wall or window unit or two with washable filters would be more than enough
for a 13x17 (feet or meters?) room.

Use a room humidifier with or without filters to get the relative
humdity up to between 30 and 60%, if it isn't.  This will help "cut the
dust" and reduce static electricity, which can make dust and hair stick
to things.

Remove all materials in the room that will produce lint or create dust
like rugs, carpets, worn fabric covered furniture, etc.  Wash the room
down with lots of soap and water, and let it air dry, then use one of
those anti-static, dry dust cloths and wipe everything down.  Your walls
should be painted or varnished -- no wall paper -- and the floors should
be sealed or painted wood, concrete or vinyl, linoleum or the like.

One final thing, you...  You track in a lot of dirt, dust and, yes,
cat hair on your shoes, clothes, hair, etc.  Put a door mat at the door to
the studio to wipe the bottoms of your shoes clean.

This about the most you can reasonably do to keep things clean and dust
"free."

Stefan

studio(which i shall have to go eventually).

One other thing you could do, as well as the good suggestions you have
already.  There are systems used by woodworkers to remove very fine dust
from the air - these are  _not_  the 'dust extractors'  designed to remove
larger dust, chips and shavings at the point where they are produced, but
air cleaners that you hang from the ceiling.  They have a quiet fan that
circulates the air in the room through a series of extremely fine filters,
and will have no trouble at all with air-borne cat hair.

I have one in my workshop and it is impressive enough that I'm thinking
about putting a small one in the room where my scanner lives.

Look at places like Lee Valley Tools and Garrett Wade to get an idea of what
these are like.

Peter