Ms. Monks has lent her painting out before — an album cover here, a movie there — but the idea of an ongoing collaboration that would bring a character to life, “that was exciting, attractive,” she said. The compensation worked out to about what she’d make on the sale of a large painting, the kind of canvas that takes months to create.

She pointed out some of the paintings “The Americans” had requested. “They were drawn to the more dramatic pieces,” she said, “because not all my work is this intense, right?”

She led me to a small one of a smudged face, a larger one of a woman shrieking behind a shower door, an even larger portrait of her mother, painted after her death, where the face seems to recede into a dark background. (That one made an FX publicist cry.) Though the images are more or less legible, they are often distressed — with solvents, with impasto, with various techniques that worry the painting. “Anything that makes the surface complex,” Ms. Monks said.

Some collectors wouldn’t part with pieces the show wanted, so she had been working 14-hour days recreating them. As she painted, she often played episodes of “The Americans.” “I’m learning a little Russian,” she said.

She could have tried it out an evening a few days later when she went to “The Americans” soundstage to help a team of set decorators with Erica’s bedroom. The room itself unsettled her. The hospital bed reminded her of her mother’s final illness. “This is very evocative,” she said, “very surreal.” While hammers struck a syncopated beat, she spread some drawings on the bed and arranged paintings across three of the walls. “That one on the bottom is upside-down,” she said gently to a crew member.

Finally, the crew stood back to admire the work. “I think we were able to get a good range,” Ms. Monks said approvingly. “They’re not all screaming faces.”