The big sequoia painting is coming along. I had to rotate it on the easel in order to see the edge of my brush in order to accurately paint an edge. This might qualify as “drawing with my paintbrush”. Yeppers, that’s the way I paint.
These big paintings are S L O W. That’s okay – the show I am preparing for is a year away.
Oh no! The gallery just asked if I could switch from January 2022 to April of this year! I don’t know. I DON’T KNOW!
After adding the birch branches to the Hard House oil painting commission, I happened to look at an oil painting of a Sequoia in my studio. For some reason, I haven’t really liked this painting very well.
Since it hasn’t sold, maybe no one else likes it either. After working on the sequoia mural and the giant snowy sequoia oil painting, I had an idea of how to improve it.
It always feels weird to put a completed painting back on the easel. It is a blend of feeling good about knowing I can improve it, and feeling a little embarrassed that I didn’t figure it out sooner.
Okay, now look:
Maybe I can do better. It took awhile to recognize the photo I used for this painting because I have definitely used it as reference only rather than an exact recipe.
Maybe I’ll keep messing with it. The contrast could be heightened on the main tree, and maybe a foggy looking distant sequoia would look believable behind it to the left, as in the photo. All the distant trees could be made grayer or lighter or something that shoves them farther back.
Who am I to think I can improve on nature? The answer is this: I am someone who understands that real life is messy and artists get to clean it up. For example, look at the large amount of dead branches on the 2 trees to the left of the main tree in the photo. What purpose would they serve in this painting? Likewise with the young tree in front on the right side – it obstructs the view of the big tree.
So many decisions for just one painting – it is a wonder I can even decide what to wear in the morning. Aha! That explains why I often don whatever I left on The Chair the night before.
Now that the commissions are almost all finished, I can return to some of the larger paintings that I began last summer. I have an exhibition coming in January 2022. This will be the first time for me in a gallery for quite awhile, so I want to have some real knock-your-socks-off paintings for the show.
Remember the cowboy painting back in October? (Probably not – why would you?)
It got this far and then the commissions started coming in.
Saddle up, Cowgirl! (The light is so different at different times of day, different times of the year, different methods of photography.)
These guys, their horses and the dog are quite challenging with nothing but blurry photos. I should be used to this by now.
The cowboys are looking better but someone probably needs to call a veterinarian for that poor canine.
Better now. Jackson is certainly curious. (That is his pink nose in the sunshine behind the painting.)The edges need paint, and it needs a signature, but I will let it dry and think about it for awhile yet before deciding if it is truly completed.
I met a cabin owner who was interested in a drawing of his cabin. The cabin was closed for the season, which meant the flag wasn’t out, and the shutters were closed over the windows. I took an entire roll of film (JUST KIDDING – I’m not that old fashioned!) and then did this sketch to see if everything important to the cabin owner was included.
His wife asked if I could do the drawing in colored pencil. No, I cannot. Well, I could, but it would take months, and then I might need carpal tunnel surgery.
So, we decided that an oil painting is the answer. These are really nice people, and they are not in a hurry. That’s good, because I want to do a great job on this, and I have the photos to work from. (Never mind that it was smoky smoky smoky when I took them.)
The proportions aren’t right. I let this dry (for 3 weeks!) while I worked on the jobs with deadlines. Then, I got serious.
This still looks rough. The windows are in place, but will look different when I open the shutters. This stage is still the early layering, getting the canvas covered, the placements and proportions correct.
After another layer or two, I’ll begin the fun phase of “drawing with my paintbrush”. I’m 61 years old and I can paint however I want (as long as the customer likes the results).
P.S. Because this is the World Wide Web, I am not showing the photos in order to protect the cabin owners’ privacy.
After finishing the commissions with tight deadlines, I went back to the ones without a timeframe.
First, the most difficult one, the Hard House.
It needed some tightening up, and 2 baskets of fuchsias. But I decided it needed something more. There had been a birch tree in the front yard, but I didn’t want it to cover the gable end. So, branches coming from the left seemed to be the right approach.
The photo had a palm tree in the distance, and that seemed to be a helpful addition to all the empty sky on the right.
The edges are painted, it is signed, and now it needs to dry for awhile. It is too big for my scanner, so when it is dry, I’ll carry it out into the sunshine for a proper photograph.
Big deep sigh of relief.
Now, will I learn to turn down jobs with inadequate photos?
Probably not. Challenges are how one can increase in skill, and I like the idea of getting paid for the practice.
Turns out the sigh of relief was premature. To be continued as I bumble along in order to keep. . .
The house painting looked like this at the beginning of this painting session.
This amount of specific detail without a lot of choices in reference photos requires that I resort to the dreaded “drawing with my paintbrush”. Why this is so despised in the Art World remains a mystery to me. In my little world, I want to provide what the customer wants, and if it requires drawing with my paintbrush, then so be it.
It’s getting there! I’ve got to figure out the details on the porch, do something with the landscaping, and then talk to my customer. She has some old home movies that she is converting to video, and then I will look through them to see if I can get to a better understanding of what she remembers.
Or should that be “Big Painting”?
This painting will take awhile. That’s okay – the deadline is over a year away!
My very wise dad used to say, “Life is a series of choices and decisions”. (My very wise friend still says, “Choices and consequences”.)
In preparing larger paintings while hoping for a show at a local-ish gallery, I have to keep in mind my mission, which is to show off the best parts of Tulare County with my art. One would think that choosing the best scenes would automatically result in sales; one would be wrong.
It is painting the scenes that people love, scenes that ring a bell, touch their hearts, resonate, remind them of good memories, and doing all this in the most excellent way possible that MIGHT result in sales. (Anyone have a crystal ball that I can borrow?)
There is a scene that draws me back, in any season with water in the creek, and I want to paint it on an 18×36″ canvas. It is Yokohl Creek.
This version isn’t quite it, and won’t fit on 18×36″ format. So, have a look at the cropped version:
Better, so I started on the canvas.
But wait! Spring is the most beautiful time of year!
Shall I try to convert the view I cropped to spring colors? First, let’s crop this view.
This still doesn’t have the same visual pizazz to me as the brown version. What’s a Central California artist to do?
More will be revealed. . . (and I bet you can complete that sentence.)
. . . is now finished! (although still wet and shiny in these photos)
Now, will the old shutter be stout enough to support a hanging wire? More will be revealed in the fullness of time.
Until a customer is happy, I don’t consider commissioned art work to be finished. However, I took a chance on this painting and signed it before the customer replied.
A lifelong friend helped me work out the finishing touches of this painting. We sat together with the latest photo of the painting, using her suggestions and my Photoshop (Junior version) skills to try some things. We were both very pleased. Look at this “map” we created; every place we made a change, I put in an arrow so I could follow it later. (Be ye not dismayed – this is a photo with blue arrows, not blue arrows on the actual painting.)
I set up my laptop by the easel and began. It is very incremental, and you may not be able to discern the changes. Just be polite, ‘K?
Basically, I added shadows to some lemons, added darker ones hidden in the leaves, and then took some of the hard clean edges off the furrows (that is the dirt/moss area between the rows, not the eleven between my eyebrows – thank you for your concern).