A friend’s mom was visiting from Georgia. She brought me these photographs.
Each one is the only existing photo of a house that no longer stands.
Each one will become a 9×12″ drawing.
Each drawing will be better than the photo, at least that is always my goal.
There will be no visible wrinkles either.
“Just curious–do you get annoyed, or do you appreciate it when someone makes a change/suggestion to an already completed painting?”
A friend and my most regular commenter asked me the question above.
Here is my reply:
“I am happy to do whatever the customer requests, as long as I have the ability and it doesn’t mess with the scene’s believability.”
She responded:
“That’s very kind (and flexible) of you. I can only speak for the audio arts, but I have seen situations where we took an arrangement and made a few cuts and lyric changes, and the arranger became incensed that we DARE change his precious arrangement.
I like your policy better!”
And I replied:
“I am very practical about the need for flexibility if I want to stay in business. I am here to serve the customer, not to serve my own art. If I was a hobbyist instead of a professional, I would probably have a different view. And I do put my foot down when it comes to logo design, because Design-By-Committee is how we got a camel when we needed a horse.”
Here’s my guess about the difference between my approach and what my friend/commenter experienced: I, the original artist, get to make the changes; my friend’s experience was that her music department was making changes on someone else’s piece.
I recently heard an interview with an artist who said she likes commissions because she can charge more for them. Really? Should I be doing that?
Better commission me soon before I decide to raise my prices.
This is Tony’s wooden goose with a coat of primer on it.
He didn’t give me any instructions other than to paint the goose. I found several helpful photos of Canada geese to work from, with visible head, neck, wing tops, wing bottoms, tail and the back.
(What did people do before The Google came along to answer all our questions? They didn’t say yes to as many odd jobs.)
First step: mixing paint. I used my mural paints because this will be outside and because it needed to dry quickly.
While I was painting the bear at the Sierra Lodge in Three Rivers, several things came to mind.
1. There is always more to a job than first meets the eye. In this case, it was the scraping of peeling paint that I didn’t anticipate.
2. Whoa! Who knew that painting on a roof would cause one’s shoes to get all sticky with tar??
3. What a nice place to work – the staff was hard-working and friendly, both to one another and to me. Eric, the maintenance guy wouldn’t leave until I was safely off the roof. Ruth offered me cold water. Nice thoughtful people!
4. You can see the place is maintained and cutened up like crazy! (I KNOW it isn’t a word, but find me a better one, ‘k?)
5. I love views from rooves. (I know that isn’t a word either – can’t seem to help myself today.)
6. I sure get to live and work in a grand place! (that is Three Rivers, Tulare County, California, in case Mr. Google is listening to this conversation.)
7. Commissions are certainly full of variety and challenge. There isn’t a single thing about my job that is boring except for the bookkeeping.
One more week in the studio due to technical difficulties with the mural. The Mural Team will sort it out, and I should be back on the wall next week. Meanwhile, back at the studio, I am working on this large drawing of a beautiful back yard on the river.
It is taking a pile of reference photos, and a list of more needed is growing daily.
This is the upper left corner. I started there, and now am jumping all over the drawing because I am missing so much visual information. No matter how many photos I take, I always seem to need more. This is because people hire me for accuracy, not just my “impression”. My art is called “realism” for a reason!