Rainflowers commission

I recently was commissioned to recreate a version of ‘Rainflowers‘ in a larger size for a couple in Palm Desert. It was an odd size they needed, but I knew just where to go to get that made perfect – Jim Ciskowski at Blue Ribbon Art Support – he also makes wonderful cradle panels. We had the panel and painting created within a month, and I was delighted to be able to take it over and install it on Memorial Day. Here’s the painting, and in its forever home. Once I got in there, I totally understood the odd size, it needed to match their artwork on the other side of the tv!

Rainflowers II. Contains the words “Only the rain puts the color in the flowers”.

They might get swapped around, just for variation!

April’s Monthly mailing

I thought April was going to be a quiet month, but it kind of exploded, as you can see in the Monthly Newsletter.

 

Paintings in their forever home #3

I’ll often do two commissions so the client can choose which might work.
This is the first time that both did – and the client had the space for both.
It ended up being a great little grouping in this Sunnyvale home.  The two top ones are the new additions to the collection.  Both have poetry in them too!

And the collector is also a Cloud Appreciation Society member, like me!

Newer Work #84

I am usually willing to do commissions that will not be chosen.  I often do a couple of commissions when making a refractured watercolor or mixed media because if it doesn’t it the spot, it can just go into show stock and someone else will love it.

Just Chillin’ II started as a commission and the potential customer didn’t fall in love with it – in part because it wasn’t going to look good in the house because the wall colors weren’t conducive.  So, another 16×20″ matted painting is in the bin this weekend.

#1358 “Just Chillin II”. 11×14″ refractured watercolor in white mat ready for 16×20″ frame.

Painting in its forever home.

My client that I met at Calabasas had commissioned me to create a repeat of a small painting in a larger size for a space in the guest bathroom.  He lives close enough to my other half that I was able to deliver.  Here’s ‘Ron’s Red Morning’ in it’s place.

Gonna be hanging out with the towels.

Easter bunny.

Easter saw me not egg hunting, but preparing a nest.  Carter James is due to join us on earth in the next month or so, and his Mom wanted his name and initial painted on the wall of his nursery.  As the nursery is between my place and my other half’s place, the logistics figured out best if I went by on Easter morning.  That worked for the family too, it was a lazy morning and they relaxed downstairs while I inscribed on Carter’s wall.

A big C for the little C on the way.

The balloon of knowledge….

Here’s November’s monthly newsletter.  As an addendum, I realize I was actually working on 25 commissions in October.  When do I find time to clean the house?  Oh, wait……

Stress levels.

The studio doesn’t normally look this messy.  Actually it’s looking a bit better than it had done as 20 of the little oil paintings I had to do are drying on the line, one is on the wall, two behind me (not shown – one landscape, one pet portrait) and one on the left still in progress taking up the main project table.  While I wait for a good time to make the next round of progress on the one on the left, I’m working on exercises for a class I’m going to start teaching next month.  It’s a watercolor class and as you can see, there’s hardly anywhere to put the watercolors.

There really isn’t anywhere to put anything down! The painting on the left is on supports, with oil paints stashed underneath it.

This too shall pass in about a week when I get the large oil dry enough to put on a wall to finish drying, and by then the babies should be dry enough to stack somewhere until I deliver them next month.  (Watch for the December newsletter probably to find their destination, it’s fun!)

 

Newer Work #68

I’ve long wanted to see the Aurorae, but cost and logistics have always prevented it – plus that pesky old unalterable – the cold!  Nevertheless I can be inspired by the photos that others post.  The tough one about painting the aurorae is that it’s light on blackness – something that can’t be easily done in watercolor, and the soft swirls can’t be done easily in acrylic.  So this is one of my most impressionistic skies.

If you love it – it’s small enough to ship easily, still gift sized and ready to go on the wall.   Others that I’ve posted recently were from a batch of matted pieces.

#1256 Aurorae II. Refractured watercolor on flat panel, acrylic edges. 11×14″, $180.

Forever home

“Tranquility with tree”

Last month, from my show at 29 Palms Gallery, I sold a painting that went to its forever home in Wisconsin.  “Tranquility with Tree” has a special place in my heart – my some-times art dealer Rick Pantele and I put a 5×10 foot giclee version of it into an office at Kaiser Permanente.  Tranquility with Tree also spent about two years in the Pioneer’s Museum in Imperial.  I had stopped taking it to shows as it was my last framed piece, and the last one in a series is always the hardest one to sell.  So I was delighted it sold a couple weeks after coming out of the museum, from a gallery where it got to hang on its own little wall and didn’t stand out like a sore thumb.

In shipping it to Wisconsin, I got to talking to the client – whom I have not met – and he kept in touch through the reframing and sent me a picture of my baby in its Forever Home.  Then he ordered a commission painting to go with it!  The sibling went out in the mail today and I will hopefully have a portrait of the two of them together in due course.

“Joshua Evening”