Lisa’s family has a lake house in Minnesota, somewhere northern and treed and lakey and gorgeous. She asked me to paint it.

After briefly considering a request to be flown there to see it with my own eyes, I came to my senses and said “Yes, of course I can work from your photos.”

(I have yet to find a customer who will fly me to her lake house in Michigan or Minnesota, family estate in South Africa or Brazil, beach house on Cape Cod or the Outer Banks, log home in Montana or Colorado, et cetera. What am I doing wrong here??)

Lisa wrote me some very thorough notes. We emailed often when she was at the lake house. She took photos. We spoke on the phone. We wrote a few more emails.

Then, I did a sketch for her.

We emailed a bit more. She mailed some more photos. I took copious notes.

Then, I primed a canvas in the orange that was already on my palette. Orange is in the middle of the dark to light spectrum, so it is rumored to be a good priming color.

I emailed her a photo similar to this and warned her not to be scared by the sloppiness. I’ve heard that watching a painting happen is similar to watching sausage being made. Couldn’t prove it by me; however, I do know that my paintings begin their lives looking a little loosey-goosey, sloppy-woppy, ugly-bugly.

Put on your rose-colored glasses, willya for Pete’s Sake?

(Who is Pete?)