Another Oil Painting Commission

If you’ve known me for awhile, you may have heard me say that it is all my friends and relatives who buy my work because they feel sorry for me.

Another friend used to tell me this: “If your friends and family won’t do business with you, who will?”

A long time friend asked me to paint something for her home. She lost her husband about 2 years ago, and now she is slowly changing things to fit her tastes rather than their joint tastes.

She borrowed a book of my photos called “Spring in Three Rivers” (sometimes I just amaze myself with cleverness), and found a photo that rang her bell.

I took paintings to her house so we could determine the most appropriate size and orientation (that means vertical or horizontal).

She decided, and I began:

Now that just gets you all excited, doesn’t it?

How about this view? Painting upside down usually means I have the photo also turned upside down, but I reversed it so you could see what the goal is.

I think this is going to be beautiful! “Spring in Three Rivers” might even become the title, because of that cleverness I mentioned earlier.

The Cabin Painting Grows

On Wednesday, I left you with this cliff hanger of a picture:

This is the next view:

And this is how it looked when it was getting a little too dark to see out in the painting workshop.

Now it is time to show the customer before I do any more detail work. That large tree on the right needs more work, and I’m a little fuzzy about the foreground. The photos don’t offer much help. I also want to add lines to indicate shingles on the roof.

More will be revealed in the fullness of time. . .

Earning the Big Bucks Painting a Cabin

This is how it looked the last time we discussed the back country cabin in Kings Canyon National Park.

“We discussed”? Who is this we? Um, well, me. I thought it looked sort of fakey with just 2 thunderheads.

No worries. The sky dried enough that I could add more. And notice the added detail to the face of the cabin. This is so fun to paint!

See the corner detail? Log cabins have very busy and intricate corners. This little part took a long time to figure out what I was seeing, and how to make the light be correct. In the photos, there are people in the way and they cast shadows. I have to figure out which shadows are from them, and then eliminate those shadows, along with figuring out what should be showing behind the people.

That’s why I get paid the big bucks.

Hahaha, heheheh. . . hooey, that was a good one! 😎