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

[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.

[Allan Rahbek]

Hi,
I guess that I am in the "Richard Bingham category" regarding paint action outside the frame. I am trained for painting doors, not floors and carpets, it has become a habit and not something that I think about allot.

By the way, this Freud studio photo look arranged to me, almost surreal; the easel untouched by paint with the finished painting on it and the painter coming into the studio ready to get started.

I am also fascinated by Freud and think this is a very fine portrait and painting.

The light in the studio is ideal, I'd wish that it was my studio.

[Cindy Procious]

That was my thought, as well - how could Freud's easel be so pristine, yet everything else be completely and thoroughly covered?

I remember a photo Nicolas Uribe once posted - it was of him sitting at his easel - he and his wife were getting ready to go out for the evening, but he felt compelled to work on his painting while she was still getting ready. Rather than get paint on his slacks, he slipped them off and was painting in his shorts, socks, dress shoes, etc.

I try to keep myself from slinging paint, since my studio is in my basement. I want to keep the art materials where they belong, and not track anything into my house.

[Enzie Shahmiri]

My working space has to be well organized and very clean or I start to hyperventilate! LOL

[Debra Norton]

I'm like Enzie, I work best in a clean ordered environment. And I painted plein air with Michele last fall, she had the biggest trash bag I've ever seen! I think she used as many paper towels as the rest of the group put together.