Do You Sit or Stand While Painting?



I Sat While I Painted
This Acrylic

Hi-

OK, today must be trivia day. Are you a sitter or a stander?

I am a sitter. There, I admit it.

What the heck am I talking about?

I’m talking about what position you take when you create your painting and/or artwork. Do you primarily sit, or do you stand while you paint (or draw).

The traditional view of a painter is one who stands before an easel with a thumb in a kidney-shaped palette loaded with paint in one hand and a long brush in the other and wearing a beret (no, I’m just kidding about the beret). I don’t like stereotypes.

As I said, I’m a sitter. I work at a table with my support lying flat or almost flat in front of me. I’m not exactly sure why I paint in that position. Maybe it’s because when I got back into art a few years ago I started by drawing on paper. Drawing seems more natural on a flat surface, at least it does to me anyway.

A little later I began to paint in watercolor, which was a new medium for me. Again, I painted on a flat surface because, well, watercolor tends to run down the paper pretty quickly, and the only way to stop it is to lay the paper flat (duh). I’m sure there must be some watercolor painters somewhere who stand up while using watercolor—most likely letting the paint flow in an abstract way--just guessing.

It seems most of the photos you see of painters are ones standing before an easel or a mural or whatever. I guess most painters and artists are probably standers, but I don’t really know.

Of course, there was that one old photo of Monet sitting down in front of his easel painting his waterlilies. Now that does complicate things.

Maybe some of you will leave a comment and let the rest of us know in what position you do your painting.

Until next blog…