Odd Jobs

My friend Nadi has just finished painting a window. You can see her fabulous work here: Blue Window 4

I have just begun painting one. Literally, not figuratively. (The subject is California poppies, because, as you know, I am a California artist.) I started it on the wrong side, because messing up is often my modus operandi, a little Latin lingo for you. I will scrape it off with a razor, flip the window around, and begin again. Practice, practice, practice. Of course I have warned my customer not to scratch her window because if she does, the paint will go away!

NEWS FLASH! – The customer and I looked at the window in the place where it is to be hung. It looks better with the paint on the back side of the glass than on the front, so no razor-blade scraping will be necessary! Isn’t that great!! Sure surprised me. . .

Peeps? Yep, Peeps.

This may be one of the more unusual items I have ever painted! It is a commission, and there is a story of how it came about. My dental hygienist (yes, I am friends with my hygienist!) asked me to stop by her house to see a potential new painting project. She had fabulous tulips in bloom out front and I admired (and photographed) them. Later, I found some STUNNING oil paintings of tulips while zipping around the World Wide Web. STUNNING. I sent the link to the DH, and she saw that the artist also painted Peeps. Hunh? I didn’t even notice those on the site! DH asked me if I could paint Peeps for her. Umm, sure. I bought a package of yellow, my very first Peep purchase in my entire life! I’ve never eaten one either – my mom was mean, but I am 51 years old and only have 1 filling, so her meanness paid off. This may even have contributed to my friendship with my DH. As a model patient, she just admired me so much that we became friends? Nah, she is a very cool person, and we just like each other. Anyway, I digress. Here are the Peeps:

And, by the way, Happy Birthday, “Mean” Mom! 😎 (And thanks for the great teeth!)

Commissions

#12 in the series “Thoughtful Thursdays”


Commissions are one of the most necessary pieces of the art career patchwork quilt. Not every artist is willing to draw or paint to a customer’s specifications. Some believe it is too commercial or compromising. Of course it is commercial – this is how I earn my living! Compromising can mean the acceptance of standards that are lower than is desirable, but I believe the artist still has control over the piece and doesn’t have to make work that discredits a professional reputation.

The process begins as do all custom undertakings – with a conversation. Clear communication is essential for happy customers. I listen to the potential client explain his idea or vision.  I listen to his description of the subject and recommend the medium based on my experience.

If the customer wants a picture of his house, I almost always advise pencil because such a high level of detail can be achieved. If the subject is scenery and color is the reason for the request, oil is the obvious choice. In portraiture,  I recommend pencil because it provides the best chance to capture a likeness. Portraiture is tricky – I can get all the features in place and accidentally draw the guy’s cousin! If it is a view of someone from the back, oil paint works well to capture the stance and the light.

To become familiar with the subject and avoid copyright problems, I take my own photos.  The customer often provides snapshots or emails digital photos to me. Occasionally I have been known to say that I need to visit the place and see it with my own eyes. No one has actually offered air fare to Cape Cod, Montana or even South Africa, but it hasn’t been for lack of effort on my part!

After taking the photos, I narrow the selection down to two or three choices. If the customer has asked for a collage, I provide several sketches. Occasionally the customer will say the magic words, “You’re the professional” which means I get to choose the design I like best.

Some customers enjoy seeing the piece in progress; others prefer to just see the finished work. This is another area that should be discussed and decided at the beginning of the project.

Deadlines are also very important to establish. I’ve been asked to do things on impossibly short notice and also on possibly short notice. Either way, I am honest and don’t promise things that I can’t deliver. Unfortunately there is a terrible reputation for flakiness in my profession, so I make it a point to finish on time or earlier.

Accepting commissions is a way to establish collectors and credibility. The artist has been selected for the job because of a consistent style and a reputation for reliability. Best of all, commissions are rewarding because there is an eager customer waiting at the end of the project.

C Words

Eighth in the series “Thoughtful Thursdays”

(yes a bit out of order – why WordPress didn’t publish this as scheduled is a mystery to me. Why I didn’t notice is perhaps because I was doing other things – I need people for this!)

Two of the most common ways to earn a living in art are consignment and commissions. They are not at all the same, but I am discussing them here in the same article because those two large “c” words are often confused.

Here are the definitions: consignment is an agreement to pay a supplier of goods after the goods are sold. A commission is an order or authorization for the production of a piece of art.

Consignment means that the artist provides the store or gallery with work that is not paid for until a sale is completed. The advantages to the artist are that she doesn’t lose control of her pricing and can reclaim her work if it is needed somewhere else. The disadvantage is that things can become shopworn, keeping track is added work, and sometimes it can be hard to collect one’s money.

Commissions are orders for custom work. This is a very important part of earning a living as an artist, especially in times when people are spending cautiously. The advantages to the artist is that she is almost guaranteed a happy customer, and there is a check waiting at the end of the job. Two disadvantages are that the artist isn’t freely creating from her own ideas and often there is a deadline. Occasionally a commission customer will say these magic words “You’re the professional!” or “No hurry”.

Since we are learning “c” words here, allow me to add one more: conversation. This word means an exchange of words, not orders and not money. Despite repeated experiences with this reality, my greatest talent still remains counting my chickens before they hatch.  For the first several years of my business, I got so excited when someone told me he’d like me to do a specific drawing for him. I was counting eggs, chickens and dollars, forgetting that until money exchanges hands and there are photographs on the table, it was simply CONVERSATION. It never hurts to remember those chats and even follow up with a phone call or an email. That is also part of the business of art.

Colors in Three Rivers sells some of my paintings on consignment.

A lady of great taste commissioned me to paint this apple.

Flew The Coop

MA’s little iron birds are back home with her, and now she has this little guy too! That was a fun one. 😎

Working from Photos

It isn’t popular in the artworld to admit that one works from photos. In fact, the closest you’ll get to reading that someone works from photos is “I use them for reference”. Brings to mind something Jack White, my painting inspiration/guru/mentor said – “All realistic painters either work from photos or they lie about it”. Me? I TOTALLY work from photos – if I just use them for reference, it is because the scene was so complicated that I just started making things up!

The other JB and I visited the Buckeye campground in Sequoia National Park over the weekend. There is a mellow little trail that leads to a picturesque footbridge over the main fork of the Kaweah River. (You can read about it in the  January 17 blog post.) When JB saw the view, she burst forth with the declaration, “If you paint that, I will buy it!” Being a hard-nosed business tycoon (snort, guffaw), I said, “Okay, I will show you some sketches first so you can see if you like it and after I paint it, I won’t hold you to buying it.” (Jack White would not be pleased with me for that!)

Here is the main view that JB was so taken with; you can barely see the bridge in the photo! This is why I will have to sketch things in advance of painting – how large can I make the bridge without distorting reality? How much rock, if any, in the foreground is actually necessary? Can I “grow” the river, because in our memories, it is The Main Event?

All these photos will be useful to create a small (“thumbnail” in Artspeak) sketch that will determine what size and where each part should be in proportion to the other parts. If I was carrying a backpack that day, a sketchbook would have been a helpful item. But I am a modern chick who uses a digital camera with tremendous gratitude for the technology.

I’m No Abbey Ryan.

Recently my friend MA sent me some info about painter Abbey Ryan, and I watched a video of her painting. She finishes one painting every day and then sells it for big $ on eBay. It looks so easy.

MA owns these cute little metal birds. She loves these guys, and I understand why!

She asked me to paint one for her on a 6×6″ canvas. I photographed them a bunch of different ways, this angle, that angle, 2 together in different poses, light on this side, light on that side, this one alone, that one alone. Then I deleted the ones that weren’t as appealing, cropped the 4 best ones to a square format, emailed her, and let her choose. She asked for one more angle, so I photographed it that way and sent her favorite along with the new one. She chose the first favorite.

I began mixing the colors while looking at the actual birds. The sun was so bright that I was sure I was getting the colors perfect! Mixing colors is so much fun, and it is sort of magical because of starting out with only 2 blues, 2 reds, a yellow and white.

Finally, it was time to paint. I couldn’t get the angle of light on the bird the way it was in the photo, and the light was too bright to see my computer screen photo well. I moved things all over my work area, and finally decided to just begin. I figured I could try getting MA’s bird finished in one sitting a la Abbey Ryan. I figured wrong. The brush is still not a pencil, no matter how much I practice. Finally I realized that the paint was just smearing around, messing up the colors, and no more progress would be made until it dried. Here is how the little bird looks after one painting session:

Good start, messed up feet, paint all over my hands from holding the canvas!

Odd Jobs

This is a sign for a houseboat. The customer brought me the sign form and I had to design a few choices for her, including a typestyle that she liked. (I didn’t name the boat!) She chose a design that looks as if it is a scene rather than just a strict lettering project. This was a challenge on several fronts – painting on wood, painting on an unusual shape, figuring out how to do lettering without it looking like my own handwriting or looking machine-like. Here is the beginnings of the project:

Here is the finished project:

In case you were wondering, I sort of “bounced” the letters a little for a playful look – with a name like “Fuzzytimes”, it seemed to require a bit of extra playfulness!

Dogwood

My Dad used to refer to this flower as a “fried egg” and it would annoy his Aunt Mary to no end! As a kid, I didn’t understand their low-key teasing; as an adult, I get it. (Isn’t that the case with much of life??) This is a sold piece, but I wanted to share it with you because these flowers are so doggone gorgeous!

Commission

Remember this word? It means “an order for something to be produced such as a work of art”. Indeed! A friend of a long-time customer contacted me with a request to draw a house. The photos came next-day type post and had to be signed for. There were three and they had obviously been peeled from an old album. None of the three had a complete view of the house; two were from the front and one from the side. There was snow, and changes had been made from the 70s photo to the more current one. Have I mentioned lately that I love to draw? I LOVE to draw, and this challenging puzzle was greatly satisfying!