Lap desk Series: Week 5

“Afternoon Sewing” Gouache on paper, 2024

Winter is my favorite time of year. Truly. I love all that is hygge and cozy and I love the landscape and the cold. Cross-Country Skiing is my favorite physical activity and hot cups of coffee during intense snowstorms are a simple pleasure I utterly adore. I’m a total homebody and it takes a lot to get me to even drive these days. I think I’m what they call an extroverted introvert?

I really love making garments and engaging my hands in craft. I think It’s just in my DNA - I need to make things. Creative production and creative purpose go hand-in-hand when it comes to how I’m engineered as a person. Last week’s painting “Afternoon Sewing” combines a lot of those things. This image shows me inside, during a winter afternoon, drinking coffee from my favorite Molly Cantor Pottery mug, feeling that sense of satisfaction after having just finished one of my favorite sewing patterns to date: The Sew Liberated Hinterland Dress in a favorite color of mine: olive green.

Ok so let’s talk process and decisions with this one. I think that’s what you might be interested in? If someone is actually reading this.

On backgrounds

Background is always first. I know that’s art 101, but for those of you who don’t paint, background needs to get done first because you paint in layers and the foreground is the final layer so things sit arranged upon each other in a way that makes sense realistically as to what appears closest vs. furthest. Let me tell you: painting a background or any architectural element is my LEAST favorite thing to do. I get bored, I feel like I’m wading through thick mud of boringness. I just want to get it done. That’s the challenge with these paintings: I HAVE to fill the whole page. I told myself that from the beginning and filling the whole page means background. So I put one in and I trudge on. But to be frank, I’ve actually been into it. I keep thinking “what other little Easter egg can I put in there to encourage the viewer’s eye to dance around the scene?” In reality, this is the essence of crafting a composition right? as someone who adores stories, composition is not just about the symphonic arrangement of elements to create a cohesive visual - it’s about the story. How can I create a narrative within this little frame? How can narrate a sentiment without any words, but with visual decisions? That’s how Milo, my cat, entered the scene sleeping on top of the fabric that was just used to make the dress in the image. Or the sprigs of rosemary hanging above the window - or - the coffee cup with Molly Cantor’s familiar linocut-like image -or- the portrait of our dog Riley, who passed away in November. Little details like that help create context for your character in the foreground when it comes to painting a vignette Or at least that’s what I’m learning and I’m really enjoying this aspect.

Folk style paintings are meant to suggest reality vs. recreating it. Or at least that’s what I think. Their playful elements come from the perspective and depth being somewhat off or flat. Sort of like the way kids draw and paint. That is one of their most charming virtues and I think helps maintain their whimsical integrity. So you’ll notice that blue rug comes off as a big flat shape - a bit off and the perspective is totally wrong…and yet it totally works, right? I love this quality of folk art, and it’s actually a lot harder than it looks. I know the photorealists get all the glory (heck I even work for one as an assistant), but the folk artists unlearn to relearn, and I like that.

The hardest part of this painting, without any doubt, was painting the singer treadle machine. I put that off as long as I could, but by day 4 I knew I had to do it. And of course I realized that I had drawn it facing the wrong way (oh boy!). So I whitewashed it over and I redid it. I notice that I actually do that a lot. When I sketch, I rework things over and over. I erase a ton. When I paint, it’s the same, I do a layer or two and then realize I want to change something and paint over again. What I find is that this process actually enhances the final product. The multiples of layers help the gouache make a nice matte and flat dimension but they also add some resonant color that enhances the piece overall. I’m into it.

Anyway, that treadle machine as trial and error, but in the end I’m pretty pleased with it. The simplified version of the machine’s decoration help solidify that it’s an old singer with that classic gold image detail. There is no way I can paint all that tiny little detail, but how can I suggest the detail and how ornate it is but in a simplified way? This has been a great challenge to work out with these paintings and I have been enjoying it so far.

This painting is available for sale as a giclee print on the web store if you’re interested. And now, on to finishing this week’s painting!

Andrea