This painting was inspired by Ted Kooser’s poem titled Laundry:
Laundry
A Pink house trailer,
scuffed and rusted, sunken
in weeds. On the line,
five pale blue workshirts
up to their elbows
in raspberry canes-
a good, clean crew
of pickers, out early,
sleeves wet with dew,
and near them, a pair of bright yellow panties
urging them on.
The trailer sketched in and masked off so I can do a watercolor wash for the background.
First watercolor wash complete.
Second wash complete. I then created a linoleum cut image of field workers and layed down a repeat image over the background with gouache.
The block printing almost complete with a subtle transition to a berry color near the bottom of the painting.
The printmaking finished and the masking removed. Ready for me to paint the trailer in and add the underwear.
Pink Trailer painting 99% finished. The undies were made using Japanese paper which I had typed Kooser’s poem on. I then cut them to shape, stitched them together with a sewing machine and lightly glued them down on the string which they appear to hang from.
You can see the trailer photo used as reference material on the left. I liked using it as my little color tester. The finished painting will be up soon after I have it professionally photographed.