We were lucky to catch up with Anna Sanders recently and have shared our conversation below.

Anna, appreciate you joining us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

After freshman year of high school, I didn’t take any professional art classes until my mid-twenties. I’m a reporter by trade and focused on writing and my journalism career until my therapist suggested I do something “just for me” in 2016. I’ve always been crafty, but until I took a small monthlong watercolor class in Brooklyn that summer I didn’t think I was a good painter or even an artist at all. Then, for the first time since I was a child, I began to regularly paint and create for no reason at all. I fell in love with art again and spent hours using watercolors and acrylics on cartoons, still life paintings and landscapes, getting inspiration from contemporary artists on Instagram and my old-school favorites like Monet and Van Gogh. Eventually I took an anatomical drawing class where I learned how to render realistic portraits of people by sketching posed nude models. The sketching class helped me understand and execute techniques honed over centuries by the great masters to make 2D lines and brush strokes jump off the page, as well as gave me an appreciation for shadows and trusting the artistic process. I mostly paint still life gouache portraits of bagels now, but the anatomical drawing class taught me how to make every curve and shadow come alive by painting and sketching what I actually see. I taught myself how to paint realistic bagels and other subjects by painting living people. I also learned the importance of patience and practice by painting or creating as often as you can, ideally every day. I don’t think there’s anything I could have done to speed up my learning process other than starting to create art sooner. I wish I had painted and sketched more in my teens and early 20s — not just because losing myself in painting has helped get me through some of the toughest times of my life — but also because then I would have had a few years more practice under my belt. Ultimately the only thing that really stood in the way of me learning to create art was myself. Ignoring self-doubt, trusting my abilities and being patient with myself and the learning process were essential to honing my craft.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have been painting and selling custom bagel portraits and other works since around 2020, offering clients realistic gouache and acrylic renderings of their favorite bagel orders. My commissioned paintings also make special gifts with toppings and flavors personalized for recipients. A full time reporter and pun-lover, I also sell t-shirts and other merch featuring my everything bagel paintings to help remind people they’re “everything” and there’s “lox to love”

Since creating my first bagel painting on New Year‘s Day 2020, I have crafted dozens of paintings for bagel stores and bagel lovers. My day job is in journalism, so my art business didn’t take off until the pandemic when I had more time to create. And bagels quickly became my specialty because many of us were stuck at home and forced to appreciate the simple things, like New York City’s go-to breakfast. Most of my customers are New Yorkers like me and feel very strongly about their favorite bagel shop and toppings. And after seeing so many of our neighbors and small businesses suffer during the pandemic, my bagel paintings help remind my clients to slow down and enjoy life as it is. I’m proud that years later so many people still find value and meaning in my bagel portraits.

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My creative journey has been and will always be driven by a desire to slow down. I got into painting in my adulthood because I realized I was spending most of my time quickly bouncing from task to work project to social obligation. Art became a necessary emotional and physical release from the daily grind, and creating art forced me to become comfortable with slow progress measured in years, not hours or days. Creating art and painting as an adult requires you to relinquish both your time and ego to the craft. By slowing down, I can take the time to make mistakes and learn from them. Good art doesn’t exist without the dedication to slow down first and make bad art.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

Aside from bringing joy to clients and viewers of my work, the most rewarding aspect of being an artist is that creating makes me more appreciative of colors. Spending hours trying to mix the right hues to make my paintings pop and come alive has made me see colors clearer in my everyday life. Before art, I would simply see a bagel. But now I see the beauty in how the brown and beige tones shift in the light and shadow to accentuate every curve, or the way oily pink lox sparkle next to a joyfully purple onion slice and muted green capers. We live in a highly digitized world that’s becoming increasingly black and white, literally and metaphorically. The vibrancy of paint makes anything seem possible, because all colors are possible.     

Contact Info:

• Website: shop.spreadshirt.com/anna-sanders-bagel-art
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annaesanders/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/annasesanders/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/AnnaESanders