Ask Me Anything, Recapped
Your questions answered about how I start a painting, running a studio with three kids (and one pup) underfoot, and the six-foot canvas everyone keeps asking about.
A few weeks ago I hopped on Instagram Stories to open up an Ask Me Anything — a brand new body of work was about to go out into the world, my boys were headed back to school and I was in that particular good mood that only happens when both things are true at once. I asked and here's what you wanted to know!
“How do you start a painting?! Do you have some kind of inspiration?”
I usually start by painting the entire canvas one color, because a blank canvas is intimidating. Sometimes it’s blue, sometimes green — for this collection it was cadmium red. Then I just start layering on paint and oil pastel. It usually takes me about fifteen to twenty sessions to finish one painting. I just keep adding until it’s the perfect amount of chaos.
“How many kids do you have? How do you juggle painting time with being a mom?”
I have four kids, if you count the way I do — three human ones (9, 7, and 3) and one very devoted golden reteiver. If they’re home and I’m under a painting deadline, they’re usually right there in the studio getting messy with me.
“My word of the year was boundaries so when the kids are home, art is the only work I do. No meetings or computer work allowed”
I also could not do any of this without my studio manager, and the team that’s been helping me with Instagram for the past few months — bringing in that help has genuinely changed everything.
“How many paintings are releasing this time?”
Nine new paintings made up this collection. I always send the details to my email list, The Daisy List, before anything goes live on the site — if you want first access next time, that’s the place to be.
“I love the giant painting from your last reel — how much is it to have it shipped?”
This one?! She’s six feet long — taller than me, honestly. I know shipping something that size sounds intimidating, but it’s built into my pricing, and I work with an art shipping company that specializes in large pieces. It’s not inexpensive on my end, but they do an amazing job. So don’t let shipping talk you out of a piece you love — just worry about where you’re going to hang it.
Thank you all for the questions — I love doing these, and I’ll be back on Stories soon for the next one. If you want first look at new work before it hits the site, join The Daisy List. And if a painting has been living rent-free in your head the way that green-sofa one lived in yours, come say hi. I’ll help you figure out where it goes.
— Megan Daisy Milner