Morphing Commission

A blog reader became a friend and then a customer. He asked me to paint this photo of Lost Canyon for his wife and himself.

I started the painting. Scary, eh? Good thing he knows that I can paint.

Then I thought, “Just wait a minute here – if this is Lost Canyon, I want to see the backside of Sawtooth!” So, I put together Plan B and showed my Friend/Customer.

He said yes, so I kept painting, this time adding in Sawtooth.

Then I thought the plan for the stream doesn’t look right, and the trail doesn’t look right either. Yes, it follows the original photo, but we’ve been to Lost Canyon, and we can do better.

So, I put together Plan C with the help of the internet and photoshop. These are fantastic tools for an artist who accepts commissions of subjects she knows for people who communicate well.

Now I await the decision of Friend/Customer and Wife. Will they agree with this change? It is probably unusual for an artist to tell the customer how to do things on a commissioned piece. Of course I will defer to his opinion – he has commissioned the piece and I will not be finished until he is happy with it.

Odd Job, Part 3

This is how the painting of the odd oval job progressed, with mind changing throughout as it came into being.

There was a sign of this label along Freeway 5 in Norwalk, a landmark to watch for as kids on a car trip to Southern California. Our name was (and still is) Marshburn, and my parents said that this is “the other side of the family”.

In college, I had the pleasure of meeting some of those “other siders”, my third cousins. One of them got in touch with me a few years ago, so I had his contact information. He graciously put me in touch with his dad, who sent me the more usable version of the label. In the process, we got to visit via email, and I learned that contrary to the information I received while growing up, my family actually was “the other side”!

All of this happened because my first cousin’s wife commissioned this painting as a gift for their anniversary.

Congratulations, Bruce and Shellie, on your many years of marriage! (and thank you for the privilege of painting this for you.)

The painting was a hit, and Bruce gave permission to show this picture.

 

Odd Job, Part 2

Last week I left you hanging on the cliff of Why Is The Central California Artist Doing Such an Odd Job?

More will be revealed in the fullness of time. Besides, this was a fun challenge.

I began tracing the design on the oval, which was a little different shape than the design. This required a bit more adjusting.

It is the first time I’ve used graphite paper to transfer and trace onto canvas so I wasn’t sure it would work.It did, so I finished with the lettering.

Then I saw that the farmer needed to be larger on the canvas than on the actual label so there wouldn’t be so much blank space.

Yep, hard to see. Let’s add some oil paint, a first layer, and think about what colors should be used in the painting. The customer and I agreed that the colors in the actual labels weren’t going to look good on a painting.

Let’s continue this tomorrow. 

Odd Job

I was asked to paint something highly unusual in an oval canvas. It had some built-in difficulties: the subject matter took some research, it was particularly challenging to get onto the canvas, and an oval is a little difficult to secure on an easel. 

All the customer had to show me was these 2 blurry little labels.

How are you supposed to paint from those?

Glad you asked – I knew people who could help. Those good folks sent me this:

How is that helpful?

It is less blurry and Photoshop Elements will help me get it ready to use.

How is this going to turn into an oil painting? 

Great question – thanks for asking. I converted it to black and white, enlarged it to fit the canvas, borrowed some graphite paper, and traced it onto the oval canvas. 

Why does someone want this, who do you know, and why did you say yes to such a weird challenge?

More will be revealed next week. Stay tuned!

Continuing at the Easels

These little Mineral King paintings got some skies. It was cold and rainy, which meant it was dark in the painting workshop. Trail Guy kept offering to light the heater; that meant I’d have to shut the door, but I needed all the light there was, so brrr.

I worked more on the commissioned painting of the little Mineral King cabin, working from several photos to make up the scene. The customer requested that I put a horizontal subject into a vertical format; in order to make that work, I added mountains that weren’t visible to that degree in real life. This meant we had to do a lot of communicating and adjusting until the painting fit both her memory and the space she wants to hang it.

I scanned it, thinking it was finished. Then she asked about the doorknobs. It needed more trees behind and above the cabin. Bearskin, the patch of snow on the right slope of Vandever (peak on the right side of Farewell Gap) didn’t look the way she remembered it. 

The purpose of a commission is to create just what the customer wants.

(The color is different between photographs and scans.) I made the requested adjustments, and then reworked Bearskin yet again, with the customer’s help. (We might have stood closer than 6 feet to accomplish this, but so far, so good, health-wise.)

The most difficult commissioned drawings and paintings are the ones when the customer wants me to do something that I cannot see. This is possible only when the customer can articulate what she wants. My approach is that a commission isn’t finished until the customer is happy.

What is this??? 

The customer was so happy that she asked me to paint it again, smaller, to give away. (Just in case the intended recipient is reading, I’ll keep this information to myself).

Upside down is not an April Fool’s Joke. It helps me see the shapes more accurately. That might be a little unsettling to you, so we’ll continue more conventionally.

Not done, but moving quickly since all the difficult decisions were conquered in the original version.

Meanwhile, Back at the Easels

We’ve had a long break from actually working in my studio. Murals, Mooney Grove, diversions. However, while you have been social distancing, I have been painting.

The Oak Grove Bridge is my favorite subject to draw and paint. Currently I only have two in my inventory, and when/if the Silver City Resort opens its store this summer, I would like to have more for sale.

I began a new painting, this one 10×10″. (Above: 6×18″ and 24×30″)

Then I began a table full of little ones, all based on Mineral King wildflowers. Hard to tell these are based on anything at all. Guess you’ll have to just wait for more to be revealed. 

HEY! I haven’t offered you the book that came out last year for awhile, Mineral King Wildflowers. Here it is, just in case you were waiting for a convenient opportunity to buy one. (But I bet all 12 of my readers have a copy because you are probably my best friends who were listed in the dedication of the book.)

 

100 page paperback, flowers in photos, common names only, lots of chatty commentary, $20 including tax.
Available here
Also available at the Three Rivers Historical Museum, Silver City Store, from me if I put them in my car, or Amazon.

P.S. The Three Rivers Historical Museum is closed due to The Thing, and the Silver City Store is closed due to the season.

A Day of Variety

Sometimes it is a little hard to work from home. There are many other things requesting attention, opportunities to be productive in other ways, chances to just lollygag around or find other occupations. Last week I had such a day.

It began with wandering outside while drinking coffee and seeing a bit of pruning, and then finding Tucker in my herb garden.

See why I want to be outside this time of year?

Notice that these flowers are in the primary colors.

Next, I made plans with a friend for a walk at the lake early in the afternoon, and that made me willing to dive back into work, knowing my time was limited to paint. Sometimes deadlines help me to focus.

This was dry enough to begin detailing until it was time to gather up my friend and head to Kaweah Lake. (Oh-oh, I can’t remember if it is Kaweah Lake or Lake Kaweah again; what’s with the mental block on this subject? This may be why we’ve always called it “The Lake”.) We just walked in the lake bottom, not close to the lake except where it covered the pretty bridge.

The lake level is rising slowly. We walked to beneath the Horse Creek Bridge, and the mustard was striking.

After our walk,  I was able to paint a bit longer on the Mineral King cabin oil painting commission. I think I can get even more detailed on this, but it needs to dry a bit more.

And thus we conclude a day of work combined with distractions.

Commissioned Mineral King Oil Painting

You saw this photo of the beginnings of a commissioned Mineral King oil painting.

Here is the reference photo for the little cabin.

The customer wanted it to be in a vertical format, and I suggested making Farewell Gap more dominant. She approved of that first sketch on the canvas, so I began painting.

This was a combination of the familiar and the fake with the goal of believability.

When this dries, I’ll start “drawing” with my paintbrush. Adding details to the cabin will be particularly enjoyable, because you may recall that I love to draw.

More Mineral King Oils

Drying in the morning sun; this time all three vertical 6×18″ Mineral King oil paintings are finished.

This is how they look in the afternoon light. I’ll wait until they are completely dry, then photograph them, because they are too big for the scanner.

Lupine comes in many colors, so I just mixed up a shade of bluish purple that looked good with the painting. The photo lupine color was too pink and it wasn’t believable to me.

Next, I moved on to the current painting of my favorite subject, the Oak Grove Bridge.

This is the stage where I detail it to the nth degree, the style of painting that plein air painters usually don’t bother with. (They might be too tired of swatting bugs by them.)

Oh my, I really like this one! (Yep, I am allowed to like my own work.)

Have you noticed that ever since I published Mineral King Wildflowers: Common Names that I almost always include wildflowers in my paintings? What took me so long to figure this out?

One more Mineral King painting, this one a commission, working from a customer photo and some conversation about how to present things. (Not the Honeymoon cabin – this cabin is no longer standing).Before I go any further, my customer will need to let me know if this is the arrangement she has in mind.

More Oil Interludishness

Yeppers, I made up another word. It simply means that I was able to paint a few more days than expected and have more progress to show you on Mineral King oil paintings.More detail on the painting on the left, but more contemplation is needed before signing this.

What does Pippin think?Since Pippin didn’t offer any help, I added wildflowers to these two.That was fun, so I did the same to the painting on the left.Now let’s tackle this unusual arrangement of a usual subject matter, the Honeymoon Cabin in Mineral King, now a little museum. Well, actually right now it is boarded up for the winter. And let’s just paint it, not tackle it, hmmm?This turned out really well, so when it is dry, I’ll photograph it minus the poor afternoon sunlight and sheen of wet paint so you can fully appreciate its specialness.

Pippin? Got anything to add here?

Guess not. He just adds cuteness to my life.