Lately my palette has pulled me away from my computer. I’ve been commissioned to do a set of paintings (gotta pay the bills, my friends) and my attention has been on the initial sketches, color selection and canvas size. I haven’t really painted much since I moved to the Pacific Northwest and only with these commissions was I finally prodded to find a decent local supplier of raw canvas and other consumables (I eat brushes).
After being spoiled by Windstorm for these past several months, being able to call the shots, it has been odd to have clients again. “The customer is always right” adage only goes so far when a customer commissions a piece of artwork but I do want clients to feel like they get the color tones, size and shape they want. Yes, ultimately, the image I create is from my mind and utilizes my style but it needs to be able to fit in the client’s living room, bedroom, etc.
It usually happens like this:
A person sees one of my pieces in a gallery or in someone’s home. My (old) email address is burned into the back of the frame. When someone writes me, it forwards to my new address.
The potential client writes and tells me what type of image they’re looking for (“forest scene,” “mountain landscape,” “portrait”) and I tell them whether or not I have something like that in my existing portfolio. I also discuss the difference between a print and an original.
If the client isn’t interested in anything in my portfolio and wants an original (almost always true), I tell them what my package and price includes, which is:
Written tutorial about how to find where in your house your painting will live.
Based on that placement, colors, tone, size and shape are then chosen. A written tutorial also guides this process.
Based on colors, size and shape, I offer a price, which is nonnegotiable. The painting will be unframed. 50% of the price is due up front, and 50% is due upon completion. All forms of payment are accepted.
Upon receipt of the first payment, sketches are created for the client (usually about ten). We discuss, in-depth, the sketches. Sometimes the client sends photos for me to work with. (I haven’t worked with “live” subjects since I was painting nudes back in college.)
I then purchase my supplies (canvas, frame, paints), stretch and prime my canvas and begin to paint. It usually takes me three to four days if I work for two four-hour stretches each day. Most of the time I wind up working much, much longer days and finishing sooner. I don’t like to leave a piece once I begin because I feel like when I come back everything can change – anything from temperature to consistency to more emotional aspects like my ability to clearly envision where I’m going and where I want to add more depth.
Losing myself painting is like going clubbing for me. The way I love to give everything over to music and movement is how I feel about letting everything fall away to the stroke of the brush. I don’t always feel that I’m in control of exactly what I paint (perhaps a better painter would be) and that adventure of faith is exciting and magical.
Interestingly, of the four pieces I’m doing write now (not at the same time), two are naturalist pieces (a combination of a child and a bird, and a blue moon rising), and two are religious pieces (the Rapture, and the Ascension). I’ve never done religious pieces before and these have real fascinating back stories. I began with the child/bird (now completed) and have only done sketches for the others. I’ll do the blue moon next (which uses paints and layered collage techniques) because I’m nervous about the others... excited but nervous. Neither of the religious pieces include Christ as I might see him. One is based on a dream the client had and another is based on photographs of the client’s son. I have butterflies just thinking about them.
It feels good to be painting again. I wasted a few pre-stretched canvases warming up. It was fun. Knowing the first few pieces would be garbage. Knowing that my father would snatch them for his own and proclaim them beautiful the way all good fathers do from the first finger painting on.
I liked over-hearing a new family friend say to my mother, “Pahmela, just to be honest, I see what E.J. is doing and I just don’t see what all the fuss is about. She isn’t really very good.”
My mother was silent and I couldn’t see her face from where I was (hiding) in the hallway. She could have gone on and on about how art is in the eye of the beholder. That what one person finds life-changing, another finds base. But eventually she only hummed and said, “Just wait, Tam. You’ll see.”
A week later I was done with my warm up and had begun a small piece for myself (my transition from warm ups to working for clients). Mom made a point to invite Tam for dinner. After flan for dessert, and a speedy clean up, I excused myself to paint. “Oh, show us what you’re doing now, darling,” mom demurred. “Now that you’re done warming up, sweetheart.”
By the end of the evening, the painting was done and tucked into the back of Tam’s Saab and I was two hundred dollars richer ;) I suppose I owe mom a cut off the top?
E.J.
