Cabin Commission in Oil

I met a cabin owner who was interested in a drawing of his cabin. The cabin was closed for the season, which meant the flag wasn’t out, and the shutters were closed over the windows. I took an entire roll of film (JUST KIDDING – I’m not that old fashioned!) and then did this sketch to see if everything important to the cabin owner was included.

His wife asked if I could do the drawing in colored pencil. No, I cannot. Well, I could, but it would take months, and then I might need carpal tunnel surgery. 

So, we decided that an oil painting is the answer. These are really nice people, and they are not in a hurry. That’s good, because I want to do a great job on this, and I have the photos to work from. (Never mind that it was smoky smoky smoky when I took them.)

The proportions aren’t right. I let this dry (for 3 weeks!) while I worked on the jobs with deadlines. Then, I got serious.

This still looks rough. The windows are in place, but will look different when I open the shutters. This stage is still the early layering, getting the canvas covered, the placements and proportions correct.

After another layer or two, I’ll begin the fun phase of “drawing with my paintbrush”. I’m 61 years old and I can paint however I want (as long as the customer likes the results).

P.S. Because this is the World Wide Web, I am not showing the photos in order to protect the cabin owners’ privacy.

Big Sigh of Relief

After finishing the commissions with tight deadlines, I went back to the ones without a timeframe. 

First, the most difficult one, the Hard House. 

It needed some tightening up, and 2 baskets of fuchsias. But I decided it needed something more. There had been a birch tree in the front yard, but I didn’t want it to cover the gable end. So, branches coming from the left seemed to be the right approach.

The photo had a palm tree in the distance, and that seemed to be a helpful addition to all the empty sky on the right.

The edges are painted, it is signed, and now it needs to dry for awhile. It is too big for my scanner, so when it is dry, I’ll carry it out into the sunshine for a proper photograph.

Big deep sigh of relief.

Now, will I learn to turn down jobs with inadequate photos?

Probably not. Challenges are how one can increase in skill, and I like the idea of getting paid for the practice.

Turns out the sigh of relief was premature. To be continued as I bumble along in order to keep. . .

. . .making art people understand of places and things they love at prices that won’t scare them.

 

 

Napkin Art

A dear friend of mine and I were together a few weeks ago, eating something, and there were some really pretty napkins on the table. We both said, “Wow, that is so pretty”, or something to that effect. She is a jokester, someone with a sense of humor that makes me laugh at the dumbest things. She popped off with, “You can paint that for me!” That is an outrageous thing to say, and it made me laugh.

So, I did, knowing my equally impulsive and outrageous response would make her laugh.

Copyright law says that if the original artist can recognize her work, it doesn’t matter if you change it 10% (that used to be a common but wrong myth).

My excuses are: 1. I changed the scene some; 2. The artist’s name is not on the paper napkin; 3. I am not profiting from it.

Excuses made. I started on a rainy Sunday afternoon at the dining room table, tickled about how surprised my friend would be.

Then I had real jobs to do, custom art with deadlines to meet, so it just went into the Later Pile for awhile. After I finished those jobs with the tight deadlines, I wanted some more fun. Working with these bright colors qualifies as fun in my little world.

The fruits on the napkin are grocery store food; around here in the Land of Fruits and Nuts, California’s Flyover Country where no one knows about us and no one cares, WE FEED THE WORLD!  We have pomegranates, persimmons, stone fruit (my friend’s favorite are plums), and of course citrus. 

I worked from my own fruits, both real and photos, of which I have a huge stack from when little canvases of fruits sold steadily at those boutiques and festivals.

Here it is freshly finished, drying on the wall in the painting workshop. I like mine better than the one on the napkin.

I don’t know if I should even sign this. Is a fruit basket generic and universal enough, along with my tighter and brighter style, that this can qualify as my art?? Did I break the law? Would the original artist care? Do I care when people do this to my work? 

Too many questions.

My friend is thrilled with her new painting, and I am too.

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.

New Cards Available

Now available in sets of 4 notecards, 4-1/4 x 5-1/2″, blank inside, with envelopes,$8

Just in case you want something new to add to your gift baskets, stockings, or to encourage yourself to write notes to people, here are some cards that you may have seen as original art, but not as cards. They are available from my website, by putting a check in the mail, by emailing me for further instructions, or perhaps if we run into each other at the Post Office (unless I can’t recognize or understand you because you are wearing a mask).

Clicking on the name beneath each card picture will take you to the appropriate page of my website.

Oak Grove Bridge #28

Pear Lake Ski Hut

Hockett Meadow Ranger Station

Yokohl Oak

Snowy Sequoias, finished!

The top edge needed paint.
The pair of trees in the middle needed detailing next.
See? not enough detail.
Then, instead of working on the trees themselves, I worked on the snow. White is the slowest color to dry in oil paint, so it needed a head start.

I skipped showing you all the in-between steps. They were this: snow on the ground, tree details, more snow on the trees, details on the few upper branches, more detailing on the trees, sign, and then. . .

. . . I flipped it upside down! Why?

Because the bottom needed painting. 

Then I moved it into the dining room to dry.

When it was dry, I carried it outside to photograph in the daylight.

Hi Tucker. Thanks for stopping by.

Wowsa. I feel mighty proud (and relieved).

Trail Guy and I spent an hour building a make-shift, patchworked, DBO box to protect it on its journey.

This is the fancy pick-em-up truck, not the Botmobile. 

Today I will deliver the giant commissioned oil painting of Sequoia trees in snow, and it will feel great to hand it over.

Math Accident

I couldn’t figure out why the giant oil painting of sequoias in snow was taking so long. The answer is that I had a math accident. 

The customer decided on 18×36″, and I agreed that I could finish it in the time needed, although it would be quite tight.

I painted and painted, each morning before heading to work on the mural in the afternoon, some mornings before teaching drawing lessons in Exeter, mornings before my business referral group Zoom meeting. It seemed that I wasn’t making much progress in each session. Although I got areas finished, they were a smaller percentage of the entire painting than I expected to cover.

One day, I was looking over my inventory list, adding and numbering new jobs (have I mentioned how much work I have?) and I noticed that the canvas of sunny sequoias, which I converted to the snowy sequoia painting, was listed as being 24×48″.

I got the tape measure out, and sure enough, instead of painting 18×36″, I am painting 24×48″.

24×48″?

Yeppers.

Ridiculous math accident.

And that is why I have to stand on a ladder to paint the top edge.

My customer was extraordinarily gracious and understanding.  We spent a fair amount of time laughing together on the phone about the situation, and then he told me to adjust my price to reflect the true value of the painting!

His company has plans to reproduce it in several formats, and it will still work because the proportions are the same as 18×36. Because it is larger, I am able to achieve tighter and better detail. So, it is all turning out better than planned or imagined.

More Snowy Sequoias

November is the busiest month in my business. This year is busier than ever, and there aren’t even any boutiques or festivals. It is so fun to have more projects than I can even show you. Here is the progress on the snowy sequoia oil painting commission. It is several days worth of painting.

The background will only need one more pass of detailing. There is still quite a bit of work left, which was puzzling to me. Why is this painting taking me so long? It feels as if I should be covering more territory in each painting session, but instead, I am inching along.

I’ll tell you why this is on Friday after a bit more time to process the ridiculousness of this situation.

Snowy Sequoias, continued

At the beginning of the painting session, it felt daunting. When this happens, I think about the basics. Start in the background. Since the white paint was still quite wet, this was good advice to myself.

Beginning of the day’s painting session
Upper left with detail started
Upper left, after
Between two trees, before
Between two trees, after
Jumping around, all over the sequoia grove. Maybe I’ll try the tree with moss on it.
End of the day’s painting session

When it was time to move to the mural project, I didn’t want to stop oil painting. It is hard to shift gears. At least the subject matter of the mural is the same, with the added bonus of the light coming at the trees from the same direction.