Is anyone as much of the paint slob as I am?

[Richard Monro]

I confess. I am a paint slob. I tend to work on larger panels. My current painting is 30" x 56". After I have worked out my composition, I slash on the paint to block in the color with the result that I get paint on myself, the floor and occasionally the wall.

Knowing this rather exuberant side of myself, I put in a WilsonArt, burled cherry, high-pressure laminate floor in my studio. It is almost impervious to anything I can do to it. I can even use acetone to clean paint off the floor without doing any damage to the floor. Unfortunately I seem to be doing too much cleaning. So back to the old rug trick.

As I was walking through the Great Indoors store, I saw they had a beautiful 6' x 8' Karistan oriental rug marked down from $700 to $90. It now lives under my Hughes 4000 easel. My only problem is, that it is so beautiful, I find myself being more cautious as a painter. I think I'm just going to have to throw some paint on the rug and get it over with.

Is there anyone else as much of a paint slob as I am?

[Michele Rushworth]

I definitely am. When I paint plein air I use so many paper towels that I think I kill more trees than I paint!

My studio is definitely not a lovely showplace, since there's paint on most surfaces, too.

[Julie Deane]

My son has come in to my studio and laughed at me more than once - the paint gets on my hands and then I unconsciously touch my face with it as I am working. One time it was a bold streak of Prussian Blue on the cheek and under one eye. I get paint on clothes too, so old blue jeans/top/apron help.

I am in awe of people who can paint in good clothes and not get a speck out of place.

[Thomasin Dewhurst]

I don't know if you've ever seen Lucien Freud's studio? It's walls and floor are grimly covered with paint and with rags for wiping brushes. Quite astonishing - but that's what you get, I think, for being completely focussed.

Here's a link to an image of his studio with a portrait of David Hockney and David Hockney himself.

I have a friend from my university days who visited Lucien Freud in his studio at midnight one night in London (quite an appropriate time to be visiting the studio I think!). She commented too that she had never seen or imagined so many paint brushes in her life. He had boxes and boxes of paintbrushes in addition to all the used and soon-to-be-used paintbrushes in jars. Another example of his unwavering focus and vision.

Not a beautiful painter. His attitude is one of a workman. A sheer determination to get the work done. A steadily dogged searching for form and tone over months and years. No frivolities. No decoration. Not a polite conversational painter in the least. But he is certainly poetic, and his poetry lies in his gut-grabbing response to the tonal relationships of the human form. A response that is far beyond mere sensitivity. It is the thing on which he focuses all his religious and philosophical energies. Not at all a lovely painter, but I do feel, with recently renewed conviction, a very, very great one.

He didn't paint my friend (although she would have made a great Freud portrait) - she was only in London for about a week.

[Richard Monro]

Michelle and Julie - it is comforting to know that I'm in such good company.

Thomasin - Your link to Lucian Freud's studio made my day. I now feel like a compulsive neatnik by comparison. Personally, I could never work under those kinds of conditions, but I do think it reflects Lucian Freud's personality. To each his own.

[Richard Bingham]

I can't say I'm a neatnik . . . I have lots of "neatness" issues, but I do try to keep paint under reasonable control (on or off the canvas). If you never paint anything larger than a 22x28", that's kind of in the same category as being able to eat in polite company without getting food all over yourself and your dinner companions . . . the larger the piece, the more likely you are to drop paint. Richard's 30x56" is definitely in the latter category. How about this? I paint one day a week in a gallery with nice carpeting. I use a couple of old bed-sheets for a drop-cloth, and they've "saved" me more than once!

Years of doing commercial work imposed "neatness" on me under duress. For some strange reason, clients just aren't very understanding when you drop as much paint on floors and furnishings as you use on the project itself!

As for Freud, I suppose there's a "romantic bohemian ambience" that attends the condition of his studio, and certainly the fame and prestige he enjoys will make that seem "kewl" . . . But! If you paint portrait commissions from life sittings in your own studio, that nice Oriental rug and snazzy easel (sans gobs of paint spills) will speak more highly of your ability than piles of old rags and painty handprints on every surface one touches. . . JMHO.