GRANDMA MOSES

"Grandma Moses has never received any artistic education, but has always been fond of painting and has dabbled in it from time to time when something around the house seemed to need renovation. In 1936, she started making embroidered pictures at her daughter's instigation, but when the gout made her fingers too stiff to hold the needle, she started painting with oil, because it seemed "even easier". She has created her own technique, and always follows the same "recipe": to begin with, each picture gets three coats of white underpainting which is allowed to dry thoroughly. It gives lightness to the colors she applies later. A few brushstrokes draw the hills and forests against the sky, and then the houses and trees in the foreground are lightly outlined. Then she begins to paint, getting into all the details, people, sleighs and animals, with a fine brush..."