In the Studio: A Little Paint, a Little Chaos

In the Studio: A Little Paint, a Little Chaos

For my first post, I thought I’d show you where I work and what happens before a painting is finished. These photos follow Gentle Giant from its early layers to the finished elephant.

My studio is a small space in our home in Three Tree Point, on the water just south of Seattle. My wife built the cabinets around what I needed for painting, with space for my airbrushes, drawers for paints, and storage for the supplies that come with working in several different mediums. A lot fits into this little room.

Artist painting in studio with dog

I also work full time as an engineer, so studio time has to fit around work and everything else. I try to get in here at least once a week, but preferably every day—even if it’s only for a little while.

I don’t always paint or draw when I’m here. Sometimes I just spend time looking at what I’m working on. Having a space where everything is ready and a painting can stay out means a lot to me. Just being in here helps me feel more at ease.

Which is funny, because my paintings tend to start in chaos.

Artist throwing blue paint on the canvas on the floor

The beginning is pretty physical. I throw, smear, and scrape paint across the canvas, building up the background. Sometimes I start directly on a new canvas. Other times, I’ve already spent time choosing and arranging pieces of collage paper before the paint goes on.

There’s a mix of careful decisions and making a mess. In this early photo of Gentle Giant, you can see the elephant’s outline over all those layers of green, blue, and little flashes of brighter color. There’s already quite a bit happening before the elephant is painted.

Early stage of Gentle Giant, with a faint elephant outline over layers of green, blue, and orange paint.

Here, the colors have changed and the outline is easier to see, but the background still takes up most of your attention. This is one of the reasons I like having progress photos. When I’m looking at a finished painting, it’s easy to forget just how different it looked along the way.

Gentle Giant in progress, with a dark elephant outline over a textured background of turquoise, green, and red.

Once the elephant is painted, the whole thing starts to come together. The work gets more focused as I move into the face, the folds of the trunk, the tusks, and the eyes.

That combination is a big part of what I enjoy: the physical, messy beginning followed by the smaller details that take more patience. There’s room for both in the same painting.

At this stage, you can still see how busy the background is around the elephant. It looks quite close to finished, but there’s another pretty noticeable change ahead.

Gentle Giant in progress, with a dark elephant outline over a textured background of turquoise, green, and red.

The lighter background changes the painting quite a bit. The elephant stands out more clearly, while parts of the earlier layers still show through around the bottom and within the painting. The pinks, blues, and greens are still there, but now your eye has somewhere to settle.

Finished Gentle Giant painting by Jen LaGrutta, showing a colorful, front-facing elephant against a pale yellow and green background.

Seeing these photos together shows how much can change between the first layers and the finished piece. Some marks stay visible, some get covered, and others become small details you might only notice up close.

As I get LaGrutta Art ready to open, I’m looking forward to sharing more of what happens in this little room—new paintings, works in progress, and the occasional mess along the way.

Thanks for stopping by.

Jen