A few weeks ago, I was talking with my friend Elizabeth about how we are slow painters. Elizabeth and I have very differing styles, but we both spend a lot of time researching, sketching, and composing our pieces before even applying paint. And both of us deeply observe our subject matter, so we spend a lot of time getting the colors and details right. This means that I don’t make that many paintings per year, especially when I add in my regular illustration work, occasional teaching, two kids, a garden, and a border collie. There are never enough hours in the day for all that I want to do.
As Elizabeth and I sipped tea and talked in her studio, she mentioned something she had read in a book by the wonderful ceramicist and gardener, Frances Palmer, from her book Life in the Studio. Frances talks about how, when she used to knit sweaters for friends, she would bring her knitting with her everywhere and knit a row whenever she had a moment, and that over time, the sweater was finished. She applied the same “row by row” philosophy later on, when she simultaneously was running a ceramics studio, cultivating a garden, and raising children—things got done bit by bit, in small tasks. Frances didn’t wait for long stretches of studio time in order to get her work done; she did it in little steps, in a few minutes here, a half hour there. As she says, “My workflow became more manageable, and divvying up tasks this way allowed me to interweave being a parent and an artist. I did not have expectations for one long interrupted spell spent in the studio, and yet, little by little, the pots were finished and the children grew up.”
I don’t usually dress up to paint. (Photo by Grace Khieu.)
A flash of recognition passed through me as I heard this, as I had been doing the same thing for a long time. I have worked from home since 2007, so my work life and home life are deeply enmeshed. Most days, when I stand up from my illustration work to stretch and take a break, I will also fold in another little task—watering some seedlings, putting in a load of laundry, walking the dog. I do the same thing with my paintings as well. Because my paintings are detailed and have lots of different elements, I start with sketches of individual plants and pollinators on tracing paper, then combine them into a composition, transfer that composition to watercolor paper or board, then begin adding layer after layer of thin washes of acrylic. Each of these steps can be done one at a time, in shorter time increments—a sketch of a flower might take half an hour; scanning a sketch takes just a few minutes; transferring the drawing can be done in stages; adding layers of color can happen an hour or two at a time, over as many weeks or months (or years) as it takes to finish it.
Being able to work on paintings in stages and in short bursts, whenever I have a bit of time, takes so much pressure off the idea that I need consecutive hours of uninterrupted time to paint. Would it be ideal to have entire days devoted to painting? Sure! But honestly, I tend to get squirrelly after about 3 hours, and I’m ready to move around and do something else. I like to have multiple projects to work on, so that I can work on sketches for one painting, layering color for another, and researching ideas for a third. Things move slowly when I work this way, but I do always manage to get some drawing and painting in, even if it’s just a quick thumbnail sketch in the waiting room at the doctor’s office. Eventually each painting is completed, and when I look back at a year, I realize I got more done than I would have thought.
Some might read this and think that it sounds like time optimization, or productivity hacking, but it doesn’t feel that way. It feels more like I’m squeezing in little treats for myself each day, because I do love working on each stage of a painting. Today’s task, for example, is researching purple California wildflowers and their pollinators; tomorrow I might try to sketch the last of the Douglas irises in my front yard. Each little thing moves me closer to a finished painting.
Of course, part of the reason that Frances’ “row by row” philosophy resonates with me is that I am a knitter too, and have been working on a sweater for several months now. I don’t bring my knitting with me everywhere; this sweater is enormous, and would be ridiculous to haul around with me. But row by row, the sweater (and the garden, and the paintings) slowly moves along until it’s finished.
