Morphing Commission Continued

Last week I showed you a commissioned oil painting with a changing plan, and I was waiting for customer approval to move the stream and the trail into a new position, to match the cobbled together photo below.

While I was waiting for the answer, I continued to detail the rocks on the mountain in the distance.

There is no way to copy each rock, green patch and tree especially when combining multiple photos. The idea is to make it believable.

Working upside down helps me see what is really there, not what I think or hope is there. It forces me to see the shapes correctly.

As I studied it and worked on it, I began seeing ways to make the scene have more distance. This was by pulling the green patches up into the rocks in smaller and smaller pieces.Then, I moved to the backpacks, because regardless of the customers’ decision, they would remain in the same position.

More will be revealed. . .

Morphing Commission

A blog reader became a friend and then a customer. He asked me to paint this photo of Lost Canyon for his wife and himself.

I started the painting. Scary, eh? Good thing he knows that I can paint.

Then I thought, “Just wait a minute here – if this is Lost Canyon, I want to see the backside of Sawtooth!” So, I put together Plan B and showed my Friend/Customer.

He said yes, so I kept painting, this time adding in Sawtooth.

Then I thought the plan for the stream doesn’t look right, and the trail doesn’t look right either. Yes, it follows the original photo, but we’ve been to Lost Canyon, and we can do better.

So, I put together Plan C with the help of the internet and photoshop. These are fantastic tools for an artist who accepts commissions of subjects she knows for people who communicate well.

Now I await the decision of Friend/Customer and Wife. Will they agree with this change? It is probably unusual for an artist to tell the customer how to do things on a commissioned piece. Of course I will defer to his opinion – he has commissioned the piece and I will not be finished until he is happy with it.

Odd Job, Part 3

This is how the painting of the odd oval job progressed, with mind changing throughout as it came into being.

There was a sign of this label along Freeway 5 in Norwalk, a landmark to watch for as kids on a car trip to Southern California. Our name was (and still is) Marshburn, and my parents said that this is “the other side of the family”.

In college, I had the pleasure of meeting some of those “other siders”, my third cousins. One of them got in touch with me a few years ago, so I had his contact information. He graciously put me in touch with his dad, who sent me the more usable version of the label. In the process, we got to visit via email, and I learned that contrary to the information I received while growing up, my family actually was “the other side”!

All of this happened because my first cousin’s wife commissioned this painting as a gift for their anniversary.

Congratulations, Bruce and Shellie, on your many years of marriage! (and thank you for the privilege of painting this for you.)

The painting was a hit, and Bruce gave permission to show this picture.

 

Odd Job, Part 2

Last week I left you hanging on the cliff of Why Is The Central California Artist Doing Such an Odd Job?

More will be revealed in the fullness of time. Besides, this was a fun challenge.

I began tracing the design on the oval, which was a little different shape than the design. This required a bit more adjusting.

It is the first time I’ve used graphite paper to transfer and trace onto canvas so I wasn’t sure it would work.It did, so I finished with the lettering.

Then I saw that the farmer needed to be larger on the canvas than on the actual label so there wouldn’t be so much blank space.

Yep, hard to see. Let’s add some oil paint, a first layer, and think about what colors should be used in the painting. The customer and I agreed that the colors in the actual labels weren’t going to look good on a painting.

Let’s continue this tomorrow. 

Odd Job

I was asked to paint something highly unusual in an oval canvas. It had some built-in difficulties: the subject matter took some research, it was particularly challenging to get onto the canvas, and an oval is a little difficult to secure on an easel. 

All the customer had to show me was these 2 blurry little labels.

How are you supposed to paint from those?

Glad you asked – I knew people who could help. Those good folks sent me this:

How is that helpful?

It is less blurry and Photoshop Elements will help me get it ready to use.

How is this going to turn into an oil painting? 

Great question – thanks for asking. I converted it to black and white, enlarged it to fit the canvas, borrowed some graphite paper, and traced it onto the oval canvas. 

Why does someone want this, who do you know, and why did you say yes to such a weird challenge?

More will be revealed next week. Stay tuned!

Continuing at the Easels

These little Mineral King paintings got some skies. It was cold and rainy, which meant it was dark in the painting workshop. Trail Guy kept offering to light the heater; that meant I’d have to shut the door, but I needed all the light there was, so brrr.

I worked more on the commissioned painting of the little Mineral King cabin, working from several photos to make up the scene. The customer requested that I put a horizontal subject into a vertical format; in order to make that work, I added mountains that weren’t visible to that degree in real life. This meant we had to do a lot of communicating and adjusting until the painting fit both her memory and the space she wants to hang it.

I scanned it, thinking it was finished. Then she asked about the doorknobs. It needed more trees behind and above the cabin. Bearskin, the patch of snow on the right slope of Vandever (peak on the right side of Farewell Gap) didn’t look the way she remembered it. 

The purpose of a commission is to create just what the customer wants.

(The color is different between photographs and scans.) I made the requested adjustments, and then reworked Bearskin yet again, with the customer’s help. (We might have stood closer than 6 feet to accomplish this, but so far, so good, health-wise.)

The most difficult commissioned drawings and paintings are the ones when the customer wants me to do something that I cannot see. This is possible only when the customer can articulate what she wants. My approach is that a commission isn’t finished until the customer is happy.

What is this??? 

The customer was so happy that she asked me to paint it again, smaller, to give away. (Just in case the intended recipient is reading, I’ll keep this information to myself).

Upside down is not an April Fool’s Joke. It helps me see the shapes more accurately. That might be a little unsettling to you, so we’ll continue more conventionally.

Not done, but moving quickly since all the difficult decisions were conquered in the original version.

Wild Goose Chase

Canada geese were everywhere in Mooney Grove Park while painting the murals on the Tulare County Museum. E V E R Y W H E R E.

Nope, not chasing the same wild goose and photographing him over and over. The man who knows the most about the park estimates there are about 300 Canada geese there, and there will be more since this is the season for nesting and mating.

Canada geese EVERYWHERE.

If you can’t beat ’em. . .

Tomorrow we will begin our tour of this wonderful park.

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 7B

Really it is Day 6B, but there was that careless numbering incident. Let’s not dwell on that. Instead, have a look at the finishing touches for Day 6, my final day on the mural on the Tulare County Museum in Mooney Grove Park, Visalia, California, the county seat of Tulare County, where I was born.

Shut up, Central California Artist, and just show us some pictures.

I painted the inner rim to match the wall color so it would be lighter in there. This scrub jay landed atop the circle. Obnoxious birds, but such a pretty color.

That’s not a real bird!

Okay, it didn’t land. It got painted on.

I signed it in two places. Never had to figure out how to do this before, because this is the first 4 part mural I’ve painted.

Here is the final look. I finished earlier than usual, so the light wasn’t that great for photography.

I’ll miss working here. The people are great, the museum is interesting, and the grounds are beautiful.

Tomorrow I will show you one more interesting thing about these murals. 

Thanks for following my mural project!

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 7A

Not really. It wasn’t Day 7; it was Day 6, but I seem to have trouble counting accurately on occasion. (You may have noticed that the mural saga jumped from Day #3 to Day #5.)

My goal on Day 7 (6) was to finish basket #2, along with some finishing touches to all the other murals.

This is the basket design I chose for the second circle.

This time I painted the inside rim in addition to the circle itself. I learned from the other one that there was no point to making it look as if it was in shadow, because it truly is in shadow, due to the rim.Next, I drew on some guidelines. This was easier than the first time. That’s how practice is supposed to work.

Here is a photo to help you see where basket #2 will go.
The paint colors were already mixed, so I was able to dive in.But wait, what is this??Sometimes I like to just have a little fun.

Allll-righty-then! Tomorrow I’ll show you the finishing touches. Stay tuned. 

Mooney Museum Mural, Day 6B

The first thing I did on Day #6 (after admiring the view, thinking, peeling the old paint off my palette) was to realize that in order to move ahead on the first basket in the circle, it needed a base coat of paint so it could dry so I could draw on it so I could paint the design.

That was an action packed sentence. It was an action-packed day.

Yokuts were known for their baskets, and this museum is known for them too.

I went inside to mix an appropriate and believable main basket color.

Got it – let’s go!

Oh boy. That is one rough surface.

Next, I drew on the guidelines with blue chalk. (They don’t show much in this photo.)

After the base coat of basket color was on, and the lines were drawn, I did all the things I showed you on Day 6A.

Then, it was time to stop for lunch. It is hard to stop, but I’ve found that if I don’t stop for at least 15 minutes, I get confused, indecisive, and a little bit stupid after about 6 hours of painting.Okay, that’s a long enough break, Central California Artist. Get back to work.

I mixed up a very dark brown and a lighter reddish brown to duplicate the other colors in the basket. Then I just dove in.

On mural painting Day #7, I’ll tighten up the triangles and try to put in a hint of basket coils. A paintbrush is NOT a pencil and acrylic paints are NOT oils. Instead of looking like a basket as I had hoped, it is simply a depiction of a Yokuts basket design.

AND, I hope to mix up a color like the original wall color to paint the inner part of the circle.

The end of Day 6. Stay tuned.

(And if you know my Sandy Eggo sister, wish her a happy birthday today. She doesn’t read my blog, so no need for me to say anything to her here.)