Art Clothes

When I was a teen I had a few of my dad’s old shirts that I wore for painting. They were button down work shirts that he no longer had use for. The sleeves of the shirts had little smudges of paint on them from where I dragged my arms through a painting or two and the wrists had little lines of watercolour from when I would use my shirt instead of a cloth to dab my brush.

Now that I am older, I don’t have any clothes that I have designated specifically for art. I may paint in my pyjamas or just as likely in a dress that I wore to the office that day. I know there is a lot of talk amongst artists about the impracticality of other artists they see on social media painting in their pretty clothes instead of grubby paint covered smocks, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Yes, I believe that there are some people who put on nice clothes and pretend to paint for the aesthetics of social media, but I also think there are people like me, who paint in the hours that they can and will sit down after a day at work and paint in what they are wearing.

Does this mean I have “ruined” good clothing with paint, yes. Does it mean I still wear these clothes to work and accept that sometimes nice clothes have paint on them, also yes. In fact I have a pink pleated skirt that I often get complimented on at work that has a rather large gesso swash on it from a day that I was preparing canvases before heading to work. I still wear this skirt often and just style it to cover up the white spot on the skirt. I have other sweaters that have paint on their sleeves that I may not wear to work anymore, but I still wear them when I am out and about on weekends. All this is to say, that I am not precious with my clothing, nor am I careless. What is most important to me is that I have time to paint and that I take that time whenever I can regardless of what I am wearing.

This week I found time to paint some orchids that I had seen at the Royal Botanical Gardens last weekend. If you have not yet had a chance to read last week’s blog post, you can do so here. With all of the amazing orchids at the show, I knew that I wanted to paint them for my 100 day project, especially the ones with patterns and dots on the petals. I am in the editing stage of the pattern today, so I am not able to show the finished product, but you can view the video for the painting process below.

If you are enjoying the spring weather as much as I am and are feeling like switching up your decor, I have some pretty spring inspired paintings available in my Etsy shop right now. To see what is available for purchase, click here.

I am keeping it short and sweet today as I have a day of painting and editing planned and I want to jump right into it. Until next time, I hope that you find something creative to spend your time on this week.

Laura