Category: commissions

New Lessons in Painting

1. Did you know that sometimes the bristles of brushes come out in big chunks? yep. 2. Did you know that if you bang on a paint lid with a hammer to loosen it, sometimes it breaks? sure enough. 3. Did you know that even when you have done all the preliminary sketches, drawn your plan to scale and had it approved, that a better idea (or six) will emerge? 4. Did you know that it is very very very challenging to paint a scene for which no photograph exists? oh yeah. Definitely challenging. 5. How about this: you probably know that acrylic paints dry very fast. But did you know that when they are too dry to blend, and dry to the touch, and for all intents and purposes just plain dry that those giant clothespin-type clamps will not only stick, but REMOVE the paint??? I hate that.

You can see that panel #1 is finished (maybe) and leaning back behind #2. Panel #2 now has a small lake or pond and some rocks. Panel #3 is beginning to take shape. More will continue to be revealed!

Brave next step

Here is the real reason I didn’t take my paints to the Land of No Electricity, the reason I wanted to try a “real” vacation: it is because I had my first mural commission awaiting my return! Yeppers, after my practice-for-free murals, someone is actually PAYING ME MONEY to paint a mural!! This means that I had to have a swamp cooler installed in my painting space, and wow, what a wonderful invention! Yesterday, after a fair amount of necessary tasks procrastination, postponement and excuses, I began the mural. (Deanne, the shelves on the left contain a large roll of craft paper and lots of Michael’s stuff; the shelves on the right contain my notecards, envelopes, and packaging materials, along with a box of styrofoam cups and another of old accounting paperwork. Also, no hoops will be shot during this painting project!)

As with all of life, more will be revealed in the fullness of time. Stay tuned!

moving right along. . .

I am pleased to report that the collage drawing of Redwoods was very well received. It is awaiting colored pencil application, and I have very timidly put a touch of color in. What holds me back is that color messes with the values, which is Artspeak for darks and lights. Meanwhile, I have begun drawing #2. Turns out the photos supplied by the customer are horrible aren’t of a quality that is useful to me. So, I set the drawing up and then set it aside to await better photos. Yes, I know this looks like a mess, but so do blueprints to the untrained eye! (#2 is the one in the middle)

Next, I began drawing #3. In case you haven’t been following this project, this is a set of 3 large 18″x12″ pencil collages depicting scenes of the area for a local B&B. If you are a painter, you might laugh yourself silly at the idea that 18″x12″ is “large”, but let me gently remind you that the point of a pencil is a very small tool for covering real estate quickly.

Now, check out today’s work. This is a drawing I would have declared impossible, even 5 years ago. (Growth is a good thing, unless you are a cancer cell.) This is the vertical scene on the far left of the drawing. It was to be something else originally, but we discussed what would and would not make a good drawing, and the sycamore won. Actually, C & P are the winners, because they will be owning this in the fullness of time. I feel quite pleased with this, and need to log off in case I get struck by lightning for the sin of pride.

Moment of Truth

One of the scariest parts of finishing a commission is showing the customer (or if one is feeling snooty, “client”. I never use that word seriously.) What if he doesn’t like it? What if she says “oh.” (not in an excited way). The biggest deal is when the customer cries, although that always mystifies me! I just followed directions, and there is no surprise in that, but it is touching when the customer is so very pleased. It is such a place of vulnerability, the big What If, the Moment of Truth. It is the time of my life when I make a sudden transition from not caring about other people’s opinions (one of my strongest and possibly most annoying character traits) to desperately seeking their approval. But, no commission is finished until the customer is satisfied, so I am all ears, listening for any comments at all that might help the piece become exactly what they hoped for. So, for C & P, here you are (as I hold my breath in anticipation):

busy busy

Here is the painting that was a little bit shy yesterday. It is a bit of an experiment, using the purple (Sorry, Lisa!) violet/blue background. I’m still not sure which way should be up, so it isn’t yet signed. (besides, it is too wet and I might mess up!)

Then it was just too hot to paint, so I moved into the studio and worked on this piece. Remember this? I wrote about it and showed it in the June 6 posting, titled “Commissions”. Here is another small portion of the piece:

Working on the snow portion helped me not hot-to-death. (This is not proper English, in case my Chinese friends are wondering!) I was a little worked up because the A/C in our house croaked and no one was calling back to repair it. This caused snow to have a strong appeal.

And, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to know that Juan from Lindsay answered his phone, showed up on time, gave a fair estimate, got the new unit and by 8:00 p.m. it was installed and keeping us all cool! Thank you, Juan!!! (possibly my new best friend)

What an artist does

Each day is different from the others because the variety prevents a set routine. Yesterday was full of variety – preparing the entry form for the Ag Art show, talking to someone who wants a portrait drawn, visiting with someone else who is looking for “authentic California art” as a wedding gift for his sister, doing some banking along with other errands, finishing up little oddments from drawing lessons, preparing for a private lesson on portraiture, and actually drawing.

Have a look at what got finished yesterday:

In the photo provided by the customer, the garage was quite prominent, as was a sunlit picket fence across the entire front. In fact, those were the dominant features. The customer gave me the liberty to adjust things to emphasize the house.

This is my job???

This was a good painting day! It brings to mind the saying, “The worst day painting is better than the best day working”, although I think that was originally about fishing, not painting. And come to think of it, my painting is working!! (in both senses of that statement) Such a great life I have been blessed with!

Anyway, here is a new photo of yesterday’s completed left side, (because even my photos were blurry yesterday) and a new photo of today’s completed right side. Oh my, S will be very pleased when she gets home tonight!

Some of the same flowers here: poppies, lupine, Bigelow sneeze-weed, Indian paintbrush, farewell-to-spring, baby blue eyes; and, some new ones: wild iris, fairy lanterns, and a tiger (or is it leopard?) lily.

p.s. I only dropped one paintbrush today!

wildflower saga continues

Wow, this was hard today! Look at all the hassles:

1. S was out of water
2. I couldn’t figure out how to turn on her ceiling fan (it gets hot up there in the upper reaches of her dining room!). But it was good I couldn’t turn on the fan, because it would have chopped my head off working on the morning glories!
3. I kept climbing up and down the ladders and the scaffolding because I either forgot stuff or dropped it. (There is no place to put things while standing on a ladder or a platform, so it is a bit of a juggling act.) Plus, I have to climb up and down to see how it looks from a normal viewing position.
4. It was weird trying to see with the glare, the brightness of the windows, needing glasses for the reference photos and also not needing glasses to see where to carefully place my feet on the platform. . . phew! I was glad to come home, until I found that our water softening machine had been blowing gallons of water into the yard for an hour or two.
5. The 5 kittens snuck in the back door while S’s Dad was trying to solve the water problem, and I had to round them up and throw them out!

At least the painting turned out well today!

More greenery has happened at the bottom, and now it is flowing into a row of morning glories. For the farmers out there that read my blog, I apologize for including such a pernicious weed. However, this one won’t spread outside of these walls, and even you have to admit that it is a fabulous color!

Getting a little easier

Today I returned to house of S, aka the Divine Dining Room project. There was black plastic blocking the blinding window light, so it was a little easier to see. However, there were a few distractions as i looked out the window below! (Have I mentioned my Cat Disorder?? Never mind, just try to pretend that I am normal.)

This little guy was calling to me through the window, but I cold-heartedly pretended as if I didn’t know what he wanted. It was an act, it hurt a little, but I am trying to overcome this little problem.

Here is how the wildflowers look now:

In case you are wondering, these are California poppies, a variety of lupine, Bigelow Sneeze Weed (the yellow with big brown centers), Indian Paintbrush (the red), Baby Blue Eyes (bet you can figure out which one that is), Farewell To Spring (the pink – a clarkia, but I don’t know which variety), and 2 different kinds of brodaiea (or some such collection of vowels. . .) I hope to return to the job on Wednesday. This is a fun fun job! (never mind about the part where I forgot my brushes and had to drive back home before starting this a.m.)

How Long??

One of the most frequently asked questions about my art is “How long did it take you to do that?”

I, who am usually honest to a fault, dance around the answer to that question. There isn’t a straightforward answer, and when there is, I don’t like it!

Here are some of my answers:
1. Why? do you want to calculate my hourly wage?
2. It went really quickly this time.
3. I can’t believe how long this took!
4. Who has time to calculate hours?
5. The side of my brain that makes art isn’t the side of my brain that can tell time.

The plain truth is that I don’t keep track of my time. Most of my work is produced in fits and starts rather than sitting down in the a.m. and getting up at the end of the day to check off the 8 hour box.

When a commission customer asks about how long, I assume (usually correctly) that the question has to do with when the piece will be ready. I ask when he would like it. Then I do my very best to finish it by that time, and I haven’t missed a deadline or promise yet! (except for the time I was in a big fat car wreck, but that’s for another post. . . or maybe not.)