Turning Away Work

Really? Turn away work? Who would do that?

Me, that’s who.

Why?

Because I know my limitations.

The story: 

An acquaintance called me to take a look at an old photo of a pilot posing on the wing of his aircraft in the 1940s. It was an 8×10 black and white photo, the man was about 1-1/2″ high (he was in a squat) and his face may have been about 1/2″ high.

If I can’t see it, I can’t draw it.

I could see the man’s face with really strong magnifying lenses, but to reproduce it accurately and in color (that was the point of him calling me), it would have been extremely time consuming. A dot here, erase, move the dot slightly left, erase, move the dot slightly higher, oops now he looks like a Cyclops. . . that is how those tiny portraits go.

I speak from hard-won experience. No faces smaller than an egg.

Once in awhile I get lucky and succeed with these tiny tiny faces, but it is after a serious and honest conversation with the customer about their expectations and my abilities. Remember this?

(Well, oops, the link broke and I don’t know what it was.)

So I recommended that the potential customer find someone who is very skilled with Adobe Photoshop to take the crud out and put some color in.

However, if would like to have it drawn large, perhaps 16×20, some sort of size that would bring the man’s face up to the size of an egg, then yes, I am the artist he wants!

Nice man. I think it will be good to do work for him in the future. He appreciated my honesty, and he said that he just hadn’t allowed enough in his budget for a larger drawing.

In my experience, people rarely allow enough in their budgets for art. Oh well, got a good blog post out of it. Waste not, want not. (Stop thinking “nothing ventured, nothing gained” – I can hear you out there!)

Commissioned Oil Paintings With Far Away Customers

Commissions are an important component of earning a living with art. Some artists love them, some do them while figuratively holding their noses, and some artists flat out refuse. I fall somewhere between the first 2 types of artists, because it depends on both the idea and the customer.

While I worked with Lisa on her commissioned oil painting of the Lake House last fall, I did some thinking about commissions. It is so tricky to work long distance, using photos, email and an occasional phone call. Words mean things, and relying on words to explain an unseen thing is tricky.

Three Rivers commissioned oil painting

There are several elements at work in this type of art-making endeavor:

The Ideas: Those who know what they want, and those who are not sure, and those who keep editing.

The Customers: Those who can communicate and those who cannot.

Hmmm, that makes 3 x 2 = 6 possible commission customers

1. Knows what she wants and can explain it – The easiest!

2. Not sure what she wants but can explain as she figures it out. . . keep talking, because eventually we will arrive. (Hi Lisa! We did it!!)

3. Keeps editing and can explain each new idea – keep talking, but my prices are really too low for this type of continual editing and changing. Construction companies call these “Change Orders” which means they charge each time a customer orders a change.

4. Knows and cannot communicate – yikes.

5. Isn’t sure and cannot communicate – Sorry, Toots, I am unable to be of any assistance here.

6. Doesn’t have an idea and cannot communicate – Fuhgeddaboutit.

It all comes down to communication.

The painting above was painted for a customer in the #1 category, except that she isn’t far away. She wants another just like it. That will be fun, and I will add the personal challenge of just like it only better.

P.S. I see it is time to update my commissioned oil painting page because I have put commissioned paintings on the sold page instead of where they belong! Where are My People? I need People for this stuff!

Lisa’s Lake House, 10

Lisa’s Lake House is completed – signed, varnished, photographed and titled correctly as “Hjartebo”.

Now it sits in the painting workshop so I can follow it while working on the duplicate paintings for Lisa’s sisters. You’d think I’d have this completely memorized, but my visual memory is not quite that developed. I could work from the photos of the painting, but the color matching would be off.

Hang on, Lisa, I’m painting as fast as the weather, the light, drawing lessons, developing a 2014 calendar and The Cabins of Wilsonia will allow!

Painting Multiplication

Yesterday I said I’d tell you what is happening with all the duplication and triplication and multiplication of Lisa’s Lake House (which has now been titled “Hjartebo”, but there are 2 dots over the a and I can’t find the key for that on the computer. It means “place of love” in Swedish. Remember, this is in Minnesota.) 

Lisa has two sisters! That’s what’s going on here. I started the 16×12 for one sister (it will be surprise but she doesn’t know about me, so it’s cool, no worries). Then the other sister requested a 20×16. Since the decisions have all been made, this shouldn’t be as painstaking.

I don’t mean I will be sloppy. It is just that I will be able to get things right the first time.

Lisa’s Lake House 9

Am I finished?? I am not finished until I sign, and I don’t sign until the customer is happy. Is Lisa happy? More will be revealed. . .

I am happy. I am really happy!  The hollyhocks and day lilies took out the Big Red Square feel of the painting, softened the edges, and livened it up. Lisa requested the chimney in spite of the fact that it does not show from this angle. That’s fine – I am her hired paintbrush, her humble servant. We also figured out how to put in the sailboat, once we figured out where the horizon line really belonged. Would you believe this lake is 3-1/2 miles wide?? That boat is waaaay out there!

Are you wondering what is going on with all this multiplication? Duplication? Triplication??

Tell you tomorrow!

Lisa’s Lake House 8

And finally, it is beginning to look detailed! There will be an extended drying session, because the shadows on the house are all wet. The next step is hollyhocks, lilies and geraniums, and they will go over the house, so it cannot be wet when I add those.

In addition to seeing Lisa’s Lake House, you can see I have several unfinished paintings and that I have painted the trim in the workshop a lovely teal. What you can’t see is that I poured teal paint on the floor while moving those telephone wires around. I think teal and brown are a beautiful combination, so the spots on the floor look okay to me. It’s a workshop, not a living room! (although sometimes it feels as if I live there. . .)

ARE YOU KIDDING ME?? I just turned my back for a sec, and look what happened on the easels! I think I’ll go lie down for a bit, maybe take an aspirin or find some chocolate.

Lisa’s Lake House 7

The saga continues.

Here is exactly what I emailed to Lisa about it:

“Why can I not notice that the wet paint shines until I put it in an email to you?? sigh. The shadows on the left side of the house are really darker, not shiny lighter!

“In other news:

1. The sky is repainted and the trees and distant lake shore are repaired.

2. the hosta bed is now painted

3. I added the barest tiniest hint of lake through the porch even though it squeezes the side of the house a bit.

4. The stump has more texture (white geraniums can’t happen until house is dry)

5. The shadows cast by the battens are straighter and more distinct (I’ll have to rephoto it  when it is drier)

6. The windows are straighter and I added a bit of sunshine to the one on the far left (we’ll see how it looks dry).

6. The boulders are beginning to look like Minnesota rocks instead of rounded river rocks.

BUT WAIT! THERE’S MORE!

Leave these dadgum paintings alone in the workshop and they begin multiplying in the dark!

Lisa’s Lake House 6

Lisa and I have been discussing the height of the horizon line. When I work from a combination of somewhat incomplete photos and a customer’s memory, there is a lot of explanation involved. It became necessary to thoroughly understand horizon lines and where they belong so that I could put this one in the right place, since it didn’t show in any photo.

Then, Lisa’s Mom’s friend (I could go and on and say her mom’s friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s brother-in-law’s sister, but it would be a made-up lie just to amuse myself) sent a photo with a (barely) visible horizon line.

This caused Lisa and me to rethink the placement of the horizon line in her painting. I lowered it, and then had to stop painting because it was too overcast and dark in the painting studio to mix any colors correctly or to see any detail. (You know how I love me some detail!)

Here is the painting with a lowered horizon line and nothing else changed since I last posted about the painting. (Had to take some time away for family stuff – not slacking off, just living life.)

When (if?) Lisa approves the new height, I’ll put the distant trees back in. Then I’ll patch up the roof and the trees from where the lake splashed over them.

Crazy Hard Pencil Commission – DONE!

Remember that crazy hard pencil commission of those two miniature fuzzy faces? (You can see it in the October 2 blog post.)

The customer/friend asked me to make an adjustment to the boy’s cheek because his face was more narrow than round in real life (couldn’t prove it by me or by that photo). Adjustment made, I began the rest of the drawing. It turned out like this:

She thought that by adjusting his cheek, his face went out of balance. Yup. His face is crooked. Why? You might need a microscope to see it. Why don’t I just show you the corrected version:

Can you see the difference? Neither can I, but it showed up under the giant magnifying light at the drawing table. After I got the customer’s approval, I scanned it, then spray fixed it, then added a bit of red to the trailer and blue to the trike.

No, you aren’t blind. I didn’t scan it again after adding the color.