If you subscribe to the blog and read the email on your phone, the photos might not show up. (Some people get them, some do not; it isn’t a problem I know how to solve.) You can see them by going to the blog on the internet. It is called cabinart.net/blog, and the latest post is always on top.
Custom art, or “commission” work might be the most satisfying piece of my business. I am painting something that someone really wants, painting with confidence that it will be loved, and confidence that it will be sold.
Artists can be so insecure. We pour ourselves onto paper or canvas, creating something that really lights our fire, getting lost in the process, and then . . . what? Nothing happens.
So, when I get a commission, particularly one of something that I am familiar with (orange groves, sequoia trees, Sawtooth, cabins, or anything Mineral King), it is a real pleasure to paint.
Beginnings
The customers chose 16×20″. I primed the canvas, assigned an inventory number, and wired the back. Pippin hung around, but wasn’t interested in the details. (And the vase of lemon geranium may have repelled the mosquitos.)
It was near the end of the day, and I was in danger of falling into Idiotville, where Stupid, Sloppy, and Careless reside, so I set it aside for the day.
And this is how it looked after the next painting session:
Yeppers, this time in oil paint instead of pencil. Not sisters this time—a brother and a sister, different grove. And no deadline, so I will spend oodles of time make this piece of Tulare County art perfect.
Oodles, I said.