Rainy Day Chairs

I was shuffling through some of my paintings the other day and came across these chair sketches from painting trips to Merchant Island, Maine in 1997 and 2001. I was surprised that I had forgotten about them.

A painting friend and I were staying in a house on the island furnished with an eclectic assortment of Maine woods stuff. I had found the Adirondack chairs particularly comfortable, and I had originally intended to do a mechanical drawing of one for the purpose of making one in the shop back home, but since it was raining and I was bored, I thought “Why not make a painting instead and kill two birds…?”

Adirondack Chair - Merchant Island, Maine
Carl Judson ©1997
Oil and pencil on carton 7 ½” x 13”

I started with an oil-primed, colored and textured carton panel that I had prepared for landscapes. I drew a grid in pencil to represent 6” squares, laid out front, top and side views, took my measurements, sketched the chair in pencil, filled the drawing in with flake white, put in a couple of notes about bolts, made a scale and a title with alizarin crimson and white. Although I have never gotten around to making one, there is enough information for me to make an Adirondack chair from this sketch.

Several years later another couple of rainy days saw me at it again with a pleasing Windsor chair and a slightly dilapidated but very comfortable cane seat rocking chair. The carton panels are too absorbent by themselves, so sometimes I am in the habit of smearing my palette scrapings into the surface to form a sealer. The resulting multi-colored surfaces are pleasingly accidental and can provide a nice background to paint on.

Now that I’ve stumbled across these I’m looking forward to doing some more mechanical or architectural style oil sketches.

Johnny’s Rocking Chair - Merchant Island, Maine
Carl Judson ©2001
Oil and pencil on carton 7 ½” x 13”

Windsor Chair - Merchant Island, Maine
Carl Judson ©2001
Oil and pencil on carton 7 ½” x 13”