The Commission Process - PART II

Well, I spent the last few days trying to finish up the commission that I started to outline in my previous post. This is a painting that has not come easily to me, mainly because there are a number of issues with the subject matter and composition that are dictated by the client. Had I just been told to do a painting of Mt. Evans, I would have painted something completely different that what I have here. I'm okay with that - it's part of the territory of doing commissions - but it makes painting more frustrating than usual.

In my last post, I ended at the underpainting stage (also known as the UGLY stage). At this point, I've just done a quick block-in with acrylics, to give me an idea of how everything will fit together.
As I mentioned before, I could tell looking at the underpainting that the foreground needed to move up a bit and that the shape of the mountain wasn't correct. Items like this are easily fixed when I go in over the underpainting with oils.

My first step was to paint the mountain. This painting is all about the snowcapped peak of Mt. Evans, so I wanted to get the mountain in first and make sure that everything else (values, colors, composition) worked to make the peak stand out. At this point, I have completely painted over the underpainting of the mountain with fairly thick oil paint. Because I use a lot of paint, I work wet into wet and tend to finish each section as I go. I make minor tweaks later, but it's difficult to change anything major once the paint has dried since my brushtrokes are so visible.
At this point, the mountain looks a bit too white. Part of that is due to bad photography (I shot all these under the light in my studio, which isn't as accurate as outdoor light). Part of it is due to the fact that the sky isn't the correct temperature. As a check, I lightly painted over the sky with the correct color to allow me to judge things more accurately.
My preference at this point would be to leave the sky alone, but the client specifically requested clouds, so next I add some clouds. I didn't take progress pictures as I worked on the sky, but I repainted the sky with clouds about five times. I really struggled with finding a pattern of clouds that would direct attention to the mountain peak, rather than compete with it. The following is where I ended up:
Before going to bed, I used some thin paint to sketch in where I wanted to adjust the foreground. Not much to see, but I moved the trees and grassline up about an inch, just to keep the foreground from feeling to cramped.
Of course, I woke up the next morning, took one look at the painting, and decided the clouds had to go (grrr!!!). I didn't like the shapes and felt that they were too distracting. The picture doesn't show this very well, but in real life the clouds were really competing with the mountain for attention.

So - back to the drawing board. I scraped the clouds and worked on the foreground hills and trees, then put in a new sky with more whispy clouds. This was at 11 pm last night, and I was determined to get the painting to an almost finished state, so I slapped some paint on the forground grasses and stream, and called it 95% finished.

Here it is in its current state (fyi - the photograph isn't the best as there is a lot of glare and the foreground looks darker than it is). I can tell looking at this that I need to freshen up the colors in the foreground grasses to make them less dark and muddy looking. There's also a funny line outlining the top of the mountain - not sure if that's just a shadow on a ridge of paint, or actual pigment. I'll have to check it out when I get home. I'm not even going to comment on the sky because I'm so sick of it that I almost refuse to work on it anymore!!
I've really struggled with bringing this painting together, and I can't really see it for what it is quite yet. When I look at it, I see my struggle, and therefore can't judge right now if the painting is really working. It's also tough to do a painting to a client's specifications, and not be able to change things to be the way you'd prefer them. But I thought I might as well post some of the steps that got me to where I am at this point - I'll probably touch this up tonight and send photos to the client for approval.

Coolest Birthday Present Ever

I know I promised my next post would be a followup to what I posted on the commission process the other day, but this is just so much more exciting (not to mention the fact that I haven't made as much progress on the commission as I had planned - oops!).

So, Tuesday was my birthday, and Nate took me out to a fancy restaurant downtown to celebrate. When we were done, he told me we had to stop on the way home and pick up my present. We drove a few blocks and pulled up to someone's garage in an alleyway, and I started to wonder what the heck he got me. We got out and walked in, and there was my NEW EASEL!!!!

I've been needing a new easel for a while now. Nate built mine for me when we were in college, and it's very sturdy and nice, but it doesn't go to full vertical and it isn't big enough to handle a canvas much larger than 24x36". I'd been salivating over the Sorg Easel for about a year now, and apparently Nate picked up on it and decided to be the coolest husband in the world and buy me one.

It just so happens that Nate's Dad works with the wife of the guy who designed these, and he was kind enough to have it shipped to his house and assemble it for us. So we picked it up there and I got custom instructions from the designer himself (who btw, is the nicest man ever).

So, here it is in it's new home in my studio:
I already love it. It's counterweighted, so I can lift and lower big canvases just by pushing with a couple of fingers. No more fiddling with knobs!! And it's big and sturdy and perfect for larger canvases. And I can tilt it to any angle I could possibly want. And it's beautiful - it looks more like a piece of furniture than an easel (well, until I get paint all over it).

My studio is in our unfinished walkout basement, so I currently have about 8.5 feet of ceiling height to work with. When (or if) we finish the basement, I'll probably have to lower the center mast of the easel about 6" to maintain the same range of up and down movement I have now, but even then it should be more than I need.

Here's a wider shot of my studio with the new easel. You can see my old one off to the left - I'll keep it forever just because Nate built it for me (and you can never have too many easels!).
Anyhow, if anyone's looking for a new easel, I'd highly recommend this one. Quality-wise, it's on par with a lot of easels that are in the $2000 price range, and it's a much better deal. I also think it's a lot more functional (I think some of the more expensive, big heavy easels are a pain because of the whole adjustment issue - knobs annoy me). It's even easy to move around on it's casters, and not too bad to transport.

Definitely a cool birthday present. My husband rocks!

The Commission Process - PART I

One of the things that has surprised me most this year has been the number of people who have approached me about doing commissioned landscapes. I have information on my website about portrait commissions, but never expected that people would contact me to do landscapes on commission. I guess I just didn’t really think – it does make sense that people might like a particular artist’s style, and want a painting of a certain subject in that style.

Anyhow, I’ve been working (and procrastinating at times) on my first big commission project for a couple of months, and since I’m coming to the end of it, I thought it might be fun to document the process of one of the paintings.

This particular client wanted two paintings done – a 16x20” of the Flatirons (a rock formation in Boulder, CO) and a 24x36” of Mt. Evans (one of the 14,000 ft. peaks that towers over the front range). The painting of the Flatirons was no problem – I had a good reference photo and got to work right away. The painting of Mt. Evans is a completely different story.

Mt. Evans is highly visible from most places in Denver, but it’s nearly impossible to get a good picture of it without buildings or highways filling the foreground. This client wanted a painting of the mountain as seen from Denver, but not as an urban landscape. The best I could do for a reference photo was from a grocery store parking lot up on a hill, and the picture was taken with the 12X zoom of my digital camera.

The result? A reference photo that is definitely not suitable for a 24x36” painting!!

I had an idea of the general composition I wanted to use, and had a sketch approved by the client (below). Now the challenge would be to come up with suitable reference material to allow me to do a large painting.

So, I got creative with Photoshop and started to cut and paste with other foreground and background images. The client wanted a fall scene, with aspens and pine trees, so I put together the following and sent it off for approval.

At this point, the client decided a spring/summer scene with green trees would be a better option. Back to the drawing board!

I went down to the lake by my house and shot some pictures of cottonwoods to use as the foreground, and came up with the following:

This time the client liked the color scheme and concept. We decided to add a small stream in the foreground for interest, add some pine trees, and have more blue sky peeping out between the clouds.

I was finally ready to start, so I started with a loose underpainting in thin acrylic paint on the canvas. This is what I like to refer to as the UGLY stage of my paintings. They all go through it, and my husband is always wondering how I’ll salvage a decent oil painting from the wreckage at this point, but it’s very valuable for me.

Here’s the underpainting for the Mt. Evans commission:

It’s definitely ugly, and the final painting will look much better, but it gives me an idea of how the colors and composition are going to work together. For instance, looking at this, I can see that I want to move the mountain up a smidge so that the foreground isn’t smashed against the bottom of the canvas. I can tell that the tree line needs more interest and that some of the pine trees should be taller to help the eye travel upwards to the snowcapped peak. And the sky is just a mess at this point because I didn’t want to bother getting fancy with clouds. Not to mention that I’ve given Mt. Evans a sharp peak in the middle that it doesn’t really have!

This stage of painting probably takes me anywhere from ½ hour to an hour for a painting this size, and I find it to be very valuable. It allows me to troubleshoot ahead of time, without going to the trouble of doing a separate study.

Now it’s time to lay the oil paint on and let the painting take shape. That will be done over the next few days, so I’ll post my progress as I go and hopefully it will turn out well!!

Phew!!

"Gore Range Spring"
24x36"
Oil on Canvas






I just returned home from a fabulous long weekend in Aspen/Snowmass, and I feel like I finally had some time to breathe for the first time in months.

I dropped off a couple of paintings at the gallery on my way out of town on Friday, mainly so that they would have a larger work of mine on display to catch interest during the Cherry Creek Arts Festival. Cherry Creek is a pretty big art event in Denver, and due to location it brings thousands of people through the doors of the gallery during 4th of July weekend. Most aren’t buyers, but some are, and it pays to make an impression. So, I dropped off this larger piece, which I was only about 75% satisfied with. I would have done some further work on it if I had time, but I didn’t have that luxury, so out it went.

One thing that’s frustrating me lately is the fact that I never feel like I have quite enough time to truly finish my paintings. My last three deliveries to the gallery have gone in with wet signatures, typically no more than a week after I finished the paintings. My preference is to finish a painting, then leave it in the corner for a few weeks. When I pull it out after some time has passed, I can see more clearly if there are any areas that need more work. This is when I put on any finishing touches. Unfortunately, I’ve been so swamped the past few months that I’m completely bypassing this step. And although I’m generally satisfied with the paintings that sell, I’m a little bit uneasy that I don’t get to spend any time with them first. I just need some time to get ahead, so that I’m not always delivering paintings on a deadline!

Anyhow, once the paintings were delivered, Nate and I headed up to the mountains and left work behind us for four days. I’ve pretty much been working two full time jobs with my day job and art, and Nate’s been doing the same with his job and being the general contractor for the houses we’re building in Steamboat. We both desperately needed a few days off, so we decided to get away for a few days.

We spent most of the weekend hiking, sleeping, and eating, and I gathered some great reference material for future paintings. I also managed to check out the gallery scene, and see which galleries might be a good fit for my work in the future. Lots of people with lots of money spend time in Aspen, so it’s one of those areas that’s definitely on my list for future representation. Aspen is beautiful this time of year, so it was worth the 3.5 hour drive from home. I’ll probably post more about our trip when I get some of my pictures downloaded – it was great!

The World of Art

Paul Dorrell was commenting on the art scene in Colorado yesterday, and it got me thinking about how many sectors of the art market there really are. I read a lot of art forums and blogs, and I’m always amazed at how stratified the art world can be.

There’s the art scene in New York, which (from my vantage point in Colorado) seems to revolve on its own axis independent of the rest of the world. There’s the western art scene, which is centered around the big art markets in Scottsdale, Jackson, and Santa Fe. There are the more regional art markets, which tend to revolve around tourist traffic and more representational artwork. There’s the California plein air scene, which maybe gets a little more hype than it deserves (Isn’t it just painting outdoors? Why the fancy French name?). And so on and so on….

Outside of regional differences in the art market, there also seems to be a big divide between the world of contemporary/modern art, and that of representational art. Both sides seem to look down their nose at one another, as though the other isn’t producing real art.

Even within more specific subject matter, there are sides. In the world of portraiture, there are those who work from photographs and those who only work from life. While there are many who fit in between, those on the extremes are the most vocal, and the bickering between the two sides never seems to end. In landscape painting, there’s an ever-growing divide between the “plein-air” painter and the studio painter, and a lot of people seem to want to choose sides. As a landscape painter, it mystifies me – I paint outdoors sometimes, and I paint in the studio sometimes – what’s the big deal?

Considering that most artists are so passionate about art, I find it funny that we choose to align ourselves with different groups and choose sides. Then again, it makes sense that a bunch of people who are extremely passionate about what they do would be extremely passionate about defending their way of doing things.

I just paint what I love to paint, and sell it where people want to buy that type of work. I’m happy, and the checks are coming in, so I have no complaints. But I can’t help but wonder how much more visibility, support, and funding the arts would receive if everyone would quit their bickering and realize that we’re all working on the same thing in different forms…

Why Bother to Plan At All?

What a crazy weekend.

I had nothing on my schedule this weekend, so the plan was to catch up on painting. I have 24x30” and 14x18” paintings that need to go to the gallery before this weekend, and a 24x36” and 16x20” that need to be completed for a commission. Since I had barely started any of these, I figured this weekend would be a good time to make some progress.

Unfortunately, that’s not how it really happened.

A short hike on the trail near my house on Saturday morning turned into a big ordeal when my dog Bailey got bit by a rattlesnake. Our house is in the middle of rattlesnake territory, and I see the things all the time when I’m out hiking or trail running, but I usually don’t worry too much about them. On Saturday, there was one coiled up in some rocks on the side of the trail and apparently we pissed it off because it rattled at us. Bailey was ready to sniff at it, but Nate pulled her away by her leash before she got too close.

We thought everything was fine until she stopped walking about a ¼ mile later. Anyone who knows my dog knows that she doesn’t just stop in the middle of a hike. We checked her paw for thorns and couldn’t find anything, so we tried to keep going, but she just wouldn’t put any weight on her back paw. Finally, Nate decided to run home and get the car, while I walked her through the field to the end of a cul-de-sac at the edge of our neighborhood. We didn’t see the snake strike her, but I thought her behavior was a bit bizarre so we took her into the vet right away. Sure enough, they found a snakebite on her back leg and went into emergency mode to take care of her.

In the end, we spent half of the weekend visiting our pathetic dog at the vet – it was so sad to see her laying there with an IV. Luckily we took her in right away, so she’s going to be okay and we were able to bring her home last night. Her leg is still twice the size it should be, but she’s back to being her normal hyper self.

Unfortunately, I’m probably going to be too freaked out to hike by myself on this trail anymore, which is a bummer because it’s one of my favorite things about the location of our house. Oh well…

As for painting, I only managed to finish the underpainting of the two big paintings, and get about a third of each of the gallery paintings done in oil. Other than the underpainting, I didn’t make any progress on the commission, but I have a little more leeway on time so I’m trying not to stress.

Since it’s Monday, I’m putting together a schedule now to get everything done when I need to – this is my plan for the evenings this week:

Monday
=> finish 24x30” painting (complete middle and foreground)
Tuesday
=> finish 14x18” painting (complete middle and foreground)
Wednesday
=> finish 16x20” commission (finish rocks and foreground)
Thursday
=> work on 24x36” commission (finish mountain and start on sky)
=>photograph and sign paintings for gallery
Friday
=> frame and drop paintings by gallery in AM
=> leave for vacation and RELAX for five days (Aspen/Snowmass for the long weekend – woohoo!!)

And then I wonder why I feel like I have no life sometimes. Geez!

Burnout and Recovery

"Aspen Light"
Oil on Canvas Panel
12x9"







About a month ago, I was feeling burned out.

Burned out on work, on art, on everything.

The feeling came after scrambling for two weeks to provide six new paintings to a gallery at a time when I was so tired from pregnancy that I could have easily slept for 12 hours a night. Once I delivered the paintings to the gallery, I spent three weeks doing a lot of nothing, and I didn’t touch a paintbrush almost the entire month of May.

At the time, I wondered where my discipline and motivation had gone, and had a lot of self-doubt. Now I’m getting back into the swing of things, and I honestly have to admit that I was mostly burned out due to the crappy first trimester of pregnancy. I wanted to do everything I always do, and my body just wasn’t up for it. Period. No negotiation.

All I’ve got to say now is THANK GOD I’m past that first trimester and feeling like myself again (minus the fact that my wardrobe is rapidly becoming un-buttonable).

I’ve been busy again the past week or so, trying get some paintings done for the gallery, working with a commission client to nail down a composition, and juggling work and life and everything else. I started five paintings last Sunday, and finished three by Tuesday so they’d be dry enough to frame and deliver today. I put the signatures and finishing touches on them last night, and framed and photographed them. I also finally got approval from a commission client to start on the second of two paintings, the composition of which we have been discussing for over a month now (that’s a whole other blog entry in itself). So now I’m finally ready to take off from work, deliver some paintings, and hop on a plane to Chicago for the weekend to attend a wedding of one of Nate’s friends.

Despite the busy schedule that doesn’t seem to end, I feel a lot better now. I’m looking forward to coming home from work on Monday and starting a couple of large paintings I have planned. No more burnout!!

(The painting above is one I’ll be delivering today. It’s small, so the brushwork actually shows in the picture for once. I had writer’s block last night, so it has a bland title, but oh well. I always figure that people buy my paintings for the image, not the title, right??)

Movin' Out

I posted a few months ago about Twyla Tharpe’s book, The Creative Habit, and how great I thought it was. After reading about her working process and some of her bigger projects, I just had to go see her show Movin’ Out when it came to town.

I went last night and I thought it was excellent. Granted, I’m a bit of a dance geek so I’d dig anything choreographed by Twyla Tharpe, but it was really good. If it comes to a town near you anytime soon, go and see it!!

I thought it was especially interesting after having read the book and knowing some of the issues she had to work through to make it a success. Knowing that audiences didn’t receive it well at first, and that there was a lot of rework involved to make it a successful Broadway show, made it fun to see the final product. It reminded me that art is never easy – it’s not just a moment of inspiration where everything comes together and you create a masterpiece. A successful work of art is the result of hard labor and serious problem solving, and sometimes it takes years of perseverance to get anywhere near where you want to be.

There’s nothing better than going to the theater or a concert to inspire some creativity. (Well, I guess going to an art museum to check out good art would fall into that category too, but you know what I mean…)

Changes

I decided that I need a new look, and I'm a bit sick of the blogger templates so I got technical and found a different one on the net. I chose this one because I like the green and the more natural color scheme. This blog has pretty much morphed into being a blog about my transition to being a full-time artist, so I wanted a background that my paintings would look decent on. I could do without the orange and the carnival scene at the top, but I think it's going to be a while before I figure out how to replace those. Until then, this is it! Any opinions?

Anyhow, life's been a bit hectic lately (what's new?!?), so I haven't had any time to post this week, but I'll be back soon!!

Art and the Most Hyper Puppy Ever

Earlier this week, Tracy posted about the toxicity of the materials artists use, and whether or not our paints are really all that much more dangerous than a lot of the substances that we eat or get exposed to every day. It’s a serious topic, and I definitely err on the side of caution now that I’m pregnant, but I just wanted to share a kind of funny story that’s related to the safety of oil paints.

I have a golden retriever named Bailey, who is a bundle of love and enthusiasm, and who was completely insane when she was a puppy. I’m not joking – she was honestly the most hyperactive puppy I have ever seen. I’d never had a dog before Bailey, so I thought maybe all dogs were completely spastic when they were small, but since then I’ve learned otherwise. The antics of my friends’ dogs pale in comparison to the stuff Bailey did when she was little and fluffy. Luckily she was cute, so we loved her anyways.

Anyhow, one of her oh-so-endearing qualities the first year we had her was the tendency to eat anything in sight. Remote control, eyeglasses, paper, plastic bags, dishrags, water bottles, insulation – you name it, she digested it at one time or another.

We have a walkout basement that serves half as my studio and half as a pen for Bailey. She has a nice fenced off area with a doggie door to the backyard, and when she was completely insane as a puppy she would sleep there at night so she couldn’t destroy the house.

One morning we went downstairs and could hear her on the stairs up from the basement. Apparently she had escaped from her pen overnight and had the run of the basement for who knows how long. As soon as I opened the door I knew she’d been in my paints – she had orange paint from one end of her to the other. Paws, mouth, and belly were the unmistakable shade of cadmium orange.


Upon further investigation, I found that my tube of cad orange was missing, and the only sign of it was the orange paint on my dog, more orange paint on the carpet, and the cap. My dog had eaten an entire tube of cadmium orange oil paint, tube and all (apparently the cap didn’t taste so good though?).

I immediately freaked out. Cadmium is toxic!! My dog was going to die of poisoning from ingesting large quantities of a heavy metal!! Being a geeky engineer, the first thing I did was pull the MSDS sheets for the paint to look at the health implications of ingesting a tube of it. I called the vet and the paint company, and both assured me that in the concentration found in oil paint, cadmium is not readily absorbed by the digestive track. Apparently, eating cadmium orange oil paint is not that bad for you – inhaling it is the big risk (i.e. if you sand your paintings). They guessed that it would go right through her without harming her.

Sure enough, 24 hours later my yard was full of dollops of bright orange paint. And I say paint because the stuff was literally the exact same consistency it has straight out of the tube. She didn’t seem affected in any way (well, except when we had to give her the longest bath ever to get the paint out of her hair – then she was a bit grumpy!).

Four years later, she’s healthy as can be – let’s hope it stays that way!!