Because I can’t start painting on the mural until afternoon, I can work on a new custom oil painting in the morning.
This is for a friend of mine. This house belonged to her grandparents, and she doesn’t have many photos other than the ones taken after the house changed owners. So, I am working from mediocre photos and verbal instructions from my friend/customer. Tain’t easy, but we can do this.
I did it again – worked with a customer until she was happy with the sketch, and then after doing the drawing (well, not completely finishing), she wasn’t entirely happy with the results.
This is my fault because when I saw there was a problem, I made an unauthorized change to try to fix it. Instead, I should have gone to her first and said, “I think there is a balance problem here”. But if I had said that and she liked it, would she have felt stupid? It is a good policy to never lead a customer into feeling stupid.
She made a suggestion, I countered it by proposing an additional adjustment, and then I warned her that erasing may leave a shadow. She was okay with that, so I feel good about our combined decision.
Here is the before:
This is the after:
I am once again awaiting her approval in case there are more adjustments. More will be revealed in the fullness of time.
I don’t want to talk about wildfires, evacuation orders, plagues, epidemics, or politics. I just want to draw and make my customers happy.
This is before:
And this is after:
Now I am waiting for my customer to tell me if this is what she requested. I can keep going, if I have good instruction. It is a pleasure to work for people who know what they want and express it clearly.
P.S. Happy artist too.