Happy Birthday, Shirley!!

Making a cabin scene is different from just making a scene.

A cabin owner requested a painting of her cabin as a gift for her husband. (He only looks at the blog when it is about Mineral King AND she forwards the link to him, so I’m not ruining any surprises here.) She wants it to include a view that normally doesn’t show with the cabin, and requested a square format.

Because this is a little difficult, all this mind-reading, designing, and putting together things that aren’t normally together, I didn’t make a scene but began with sketches.

She asked for square, so I showed her two squares plus a 6×18″  and this cabin painting; she agreed with me about this size and shape working well for her idea.

I thought I was out of this size of canvas, so I ordered some more. After they arrived and I was putting them away, I saw that I already had some that size. Someone around here could use an assistant, or perhaps a better administrator. Oh well. . . they won’t go to waste.

They all start ugly. No need to be afraid for me or the painting or the customer or the husband. No one will need to make a scene. (But wait! Is this creative??)

A risk of this sort of photo-combining is that the 2 photos might have the light coming from 2 different sources. Would the customer or the viewer notice? I might be able to cheat, but it might bug me forever. So I began reworking the color on the mountains, because it is easier than figuring out how the cabin shadows could be reversed. I pushed more paint around until my fingers got cold and my efforts felt ineffective. This is far enough for now.

Realizing the problem of conflicting light sources almost caused me to make a scene, but that would have only served to upset Tucker and Scout.