Mural, Final Day

I could have titled this “Mural, Day Thirteen” because I am not superstitious; however what if someone reading my blog is superstitious? Where in the world did that fear of #13 originate? Never mind, we have a mural to see.

After staring at this photo for awhile, I made a list of things to fix.

My plan was to go in the morning for the bright sunlight so that I could really see details. The parts I wanted to fix were small enough that the direct sun drying paint too quickly was only going to be a nuisance rather than a hindrance.

Alas, I was trapped at home for 3 hours. Southern California Edison is very proactive about replacing wobbly poles and cutting interfering trees.

I still made it to St. Anthony’s with bright sunshine on the wall.

An employee was present and asked me what was left to do. It was a good chance to articulate the parts that were not quite right and to cement the idea that they needed a bit of polishing. He was surprised by all my criticisms, and we had a good conversation in which he told me about a book titled “Beauty Will Save the World”. He said that the premise of the book is that people want to get rich in order to protect themselves from ugliness! That was an entirely new concept to me, and it certainly makes sense. 

Working all over the mural meant lots of ladder moving and climbing.

A partial list of what needed to be fixed: more branches above, 2 trees were too narrow at the top, one of the big trees was lacking in texture and was too red, more ferns at the base, and many more things too boring to burden you with.

The shade moved quickly, and it went from tee shirt weather to jacket time in very short order.

Most of the changes are too small to see in this format and probably could have been skipped, but that’s not the way I work.

You can see that the too-red tree is calmed down and has more texture now, but I will need to return to photograph it in bright sunlight.

I lay on the ground to sign, and as careful as I tried to be, my brush bounced all over the stucco. Thanks to my friend Jon, I was spared writing “www” before my web address. He recently taught me that “www is so last year”. I depend on my friends to haul me forward on those important trends.

Thank you for following along with my sequoia mural at St. Anthony’s Retreat (Santa Teresita Youth Center) in Three Rivers. No new murals are planned at this time, but I am always interested because:

I make art you can understand of things and places you love for prices that won’t scare you. 

Mural, Day Twelve

The last time I worked on the mural was about 2 weeks ago. Trail Guy stopped by and took this photo. This mural is one of the least social I’ve painted, other than the ones at my house. Now you have proof that I worked on it.

I thought I would be able to finish the mural yesterday. Instead, I held back a little, with the intention of spending time today really studying it, making the little improvements that make me proud to put my name on the mural. I am more motivated to finish things than to perfect them, so this is a matter of professional discipline.

It has been a few weeks since I was at the mural and there are quite a few leaves on the ground. Doesn’t matter – just an observation. This photo was taken with a phone rather than a camera.

I wonder why the camera’s pictures are more dull than the phone. 

I stood there a bit, studying the mural, trying to remember what I had planned to do next.

That’s right – too much empty sky.

Over the archway too – too empty.

Better.

This is how it looked at the end of the painting session yesterday. I will study this photo and make some notes to take with me today.

Winter Cabin

This cabin burned. I don’t know where it was or who owned it. The customer provided the photo and requested the drawing as a gift for the cabin owner. I haven’t heard the outcome. I feel fairly confident that the cabin owner won’t know about me or my blog.

P.S. If you recognize this cabin, shhhhh. It is meant to be a surprise.

Pre-Christmas Gift

Someone I have never met contacted me to draw a house I’ve never seen. When I received the photo, I marked it with colored circles, and sent an email asking for closer photos or descriptions of what each circle contained. 

The customer was very responsive, and sent helpful photos of each area. This was on a tight deadline, and silly me, I forgot to mention the rush charge. I also didn’t save the detail photos of each area of mystery, because space on my laptop is limited.

You can see that the photo was taken with a phone, using the built-in wide-angle lens. This distorts things – the verticals aren’t vertical, and distant things look farther away while closer things appear too big.

Time was fleeing quickly, so I just dove in. Often if I draw the parts I can see and understand, then the other parts aren’t so daunting and can be faked somewhat.

Thanks to great communication with the customer, I was able to finish the drawing well ahead of the requested date and also get good instructions about the parts that the original photo didn’t explain.

P.S. I love to draw!

Hard House

After Christmas I will show you all the commissions that have to remain a secret until the gifts have been given from my customers to their people.

Having met the tight deadlines of all the custom art, I returned to the paintings without deadlines. Remember the house painting?

So hard. So very hard. The photos. Yikes. (Would I like some cheese with that whine? perhaps – what have you got?)

Okay, put on your big girl breeches and git ‘er dun.

I sent this photo to the customer to tell her this is the best I can dig out of the photos and when it dries a bit, I’ll tighten up some of the detail.

She said, “Perfect!” (really??) and sent me this photo:

Umm, what?

There is a basket of fuschias hanging behind the people. I told her that I can’t tell where this is, and she answered, “The porch”. I said where on the porch? She sent me this and said, “Where I put the white spots”. 

I enjoy communicating with my customers in a variety of creative ways. Really makes me smile!

When it dries, I’ll add the fuschia baskets and tighten up what detail I can see. I think the floor of the porch is brick rather than concrete, so that will need to be changed. There was a tree in the front lawn, but it would hide the gable end if I added it. I’ll make better leaves on the front shrub, brighten the grass, make the porch pillars better, and the window frames too.

I wish she had asked for a pencil drawing.

So, I worked on something fun in order to take the edge off. I’ll show you tomorrow.

Ornaments for Friends

A friend asked me to paint her little dogs on an ornament. Of course they were the little lapdogs of undetermined ancestry who often wear clothing and cause me to stifle a scream while looking for a chair to stand on. I am a very understanding person, and I understand that a photograph of a dog is not a rodent seeking a pantleg to climb. And all custom art is a chance to learn new skills and to practice pleasing customers.

I didn’t save any photos to show you because I didn’t want to encourage any more jobs like this. The dog photos were blurry and it was crazy difficult. The saving grace was that my friend was pleased, which was the point of the whole exercise.

Meanwhile, another friend (same social group) asked for a similar custom ornament. When she told me what she wanted on the ornament, my head may have spun around a couple of times as I said, “You want WHAT??”

This one I painted at the dining table instead of the painting workshop, so I could prop my elbows on the table for support while painting these tiny subjects.

I charge $75 per ornament, which might work out to about $12 an hour.

SOMEBODY STOP ME, PLEASE!

P.S. I have purposely not added any “tags” to this blog post so that no one can find me on a search for custom ornaments. I only go through these difficult exercises for friends. No, there isn’t enough time for another one this year. Well, maybe, but they now cost $150 each. No, $1500. How about $15,000?

 

Custom Dogs

Many artists get their start in custom work by drawing or paintings people’s pets. My start came with architecture, specifically cabins. “Cabinart” – get it? 

Occasionally I get commissioned to draw or paint people’s pets, more dogs than cats. Here is the most recent, shown here today because I feel fairly confident that the intended recipient doesn’t know about me or this blog.

Just for curiosity’s sake, have a look at a few previous custom dog drawings:

In case you are wondering, here is information about custom dog drawings (cats too):

  1. Being eye-level with the animal makes for better photos than looking down at them. Notice the difference between the top drawing and the lower three.
  2. Black animals are extremely hard to photograph and thus to draw; seeing details is almost impossible.
  3. Clothing on animals is just weird; I have no earthly idea what the various parts and pieces of clothing are on the top drawing, and the less I understand what I am seeing, the more difficult it is to draw it.
  4. Usually people want little lap dogs of undetermined ancestry, the type of dog that makes me want to scream while standing on a chair. I manage to keep my panic at bay while armed with pencils. (German Shepherds, Australian Shepherds and yellow Labradors are more my style, although cats will always be my preference.)
  5. There is still time to have your pet drawn, but there will be a rush charge.

Rush Drawing Commission

The custom art jobs are slowly getting completed. Many of them cannot be shown, because the recipients might be readers of this blog. Can’t be giving away secrets like that just before Christmas!

This is a drawing that the recipient has already received. It began with some sketches.

The customer didn’t want these subjects shown this way. (Why did they – customer and assistant – send me these photos to work from??)

I tried again from the photos they specified out of the batches they had sent to me. (Often multiple photos help me see details that might be obstructed by shade or trees or trash cans or cars or. . .)

This was accepted, but the customer requested that the upper left image not be on a tilt.

It was a rush job, so I spent all day on a Saturday and a few hours on Sunday completing the drawing.

The upper right scene was drawn from another rush job for the same customer several years ago.

P.S. This was a very challenging job, causing me to rethink my custom prices and available sizes for collages. I know for sure now that 9×12″ is too small for this amount of detail (BRICKS – oy vey!)

In Case You Were Wondering.

In case you are wondering about the mural in progress at St. Anthony’s, I have set it aside (figuratively speaking) until I have finished the custom art jobs. The mural doesn’t have a deadline; the other jobs do.

In case you are wondering why I am not showing you more custom jobs, it is because they are gifts for people, and I can keep secrets.

More will be revealed in the fullness of time. Tomorrow I’ll begin showing you a few of the commissions that the recipients won’t see on my blog because they don’t read it or even know about me.