Hello friends, welcome to my studio.
I’ve got a lemon water with a fun straw, a new painting on my table, freshly potted flowers in my window, and the pressure of a deadline creeping ever closer. Making the Cut is playing on my little studio tv again, and I only have a few episodes left so I’ll need to choose another mindless reality show to keep me company (any recommendations? I like competitions!).
The biggest news is: I finished a painting! The big painting with the blue background has been completed since my last log a week ago. It still needs to be varnished, signed, photographed, and inventoried (the dreaded final tasks of any painting) but otherwise it’s ready to hang in the August exhibition I’m working towards. This was a learning painting, I figured out a lot about how I want this process to work while making it and I’m hoping the next few will go a little faster (fingers crossed).
I’ve started a new big painting with a yellow background, and it’s staring at me from my work table. The first colour of the quilt is orange, and I have one layer dry from yesterday’s session. I drew the outline of my design in black this time (why did I do that? I usually use grey!) and this orange is transparent, which I’m already regretting because many layers will be needed to cover that darn black. Next time, I might paint a layer of white first to give a transparent colour (like yellow, my next colour to paint) a fighting chance. Sometimes I like to make decisions without thinking too much, but in the planning and layout stage, this went against the idea of planning ahead for my future, and I’m kicking myself now.
For years, most of my painting preparation has been done on my iPad. Digital sketches precede the painting process, and while this method is fast and cost effective, when I over-prepare digitally (aka do more of a digital painting than a prep sketch) it leaves me feeling disconnected from the work and without any tangible record of my thought process while I was making it, which is hard to build on. So with this series I’m trying to use my sketchbook to plan the colours instead with some old fashioned markers (remember the markers I was swatching last week? Those!). It’s nice to know I’ll be able to come back to this page after the painting is out in the world. In Chris Guillebeau’s article The Stardew Valley Guide to Finishing Things, he says “tactile experiences create stronger memory connections and emotional responses. Your productivity system should feel like something that exists in the real world, not just on a screen.” I’m subbing in creative practice for productivity system here, and trying to get my planning back to pen and paper.
Kingsley is having a big nap day, and he’s curled up under my table. This is maybe his fifth snooze since we got out of bed this morning, but he still looks as sleepy as if he pulled an all nighter. He lifts his head up to look at me and then quickly puts it back down, deciding against a scritch to keep dreaming. I don’t blame him one bit.
Yesterday I collaged a wallpaper piece on my smaller painting in progress, and now the only layer left before the finishing paint swoops is the collaged photograph bits (very technical terms here). So I take the tracing paper and start with the first area to be collaged, mapping out the shape. I try to reuse scraps from previous paintings whenever possible so no tracing paper gets wasted.
Once I have my pattern (as I like to call it) I head to my cutting table and the shape gets traced onto the photograph and cut out with an x-acto knife. The shot captures grasses that have grown wild around the land my maternal grandparents used to live on, as this work is about the memory of that place as well as the craft traditions that were handed down of my family. From an aesthetic point of view, I like the way the grass texture contrasts with the clean, hard edge quilt squares, it’s a juicy moment that gets me excited about these paintings.
I pull out the matte medium and glue the paper piece down then press it under a heavy weight, where it will sit overnight. This is a slow part of the process, because it needs time before I feel secure that it won’t lift, but that’s why it’s helpful to have more than one painting in progress.
I turn back to the big painting and head in with another layer of orange. While I wait for it to dry, I do another inescapable studio task: clean my palette. I use up every corner but eventually I run out of room and it’s time to start again! I soften the paints with a spray bottle of water then I use a blade to scrape the old paint into a jar. Even though it’s a dreaded chore, it’s quite satisfying.
Kingsley pops his head up to say hello and get a pet before running upstairs to see what my husband is up to. The slow, steady process of studio time can be boring for an audience (I wonder how boring it may be to read about!) and yet we persevere.
While working on the next layer of orange, the worst happens: a painty orange fingerprint on my butter yellow background. In previous phases of art making, this would have derailed me. Now, I swear under my breath and move on, knowing I can touch it up later. Yes, it will add more work and time, which sucks so much, but it’s not the end of the world. I just keep on painting.
A few more layers of orange later and it’s time to end this studio session on a high note: a tape peel. Look at those crisp edges! That’s enough to make me want to come back. Before I call it a day, though, I decide to push a bit and do Future Emily a favour by masking out tomorrow’s colour. I like to leave the studio with the next step as clear as day, to minimize the time it takes to get my head in the game when I come back (often be the hardest part of the process). Once I’m done that, I’m done for the day! That wasn’t so scary, now was it?
Happy Art Making,
Em 💕
www.emilypittman.ca
www.studiomates.ca
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