The past few weeks I’ve been focusing mostly on finishing up commissions, and just started a new group of paintings for a gallery release in June.
This landscape diptych was commissioned by a lovely collector who previously purchased some landscapes from the UK series. I was absolutely delighted to bring out the oil paints and create this pair of paintings for their cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains…
Next, I jumped into this 60x40” abstract river for a fantastic interior designer who commissioned the piece for a mountain home in Colorado. As I’m typing this I just realized both of these recent commissions went to mountain homes - one Eastern, and one Western. Fun! Anyway, this painting was based off a smaller one that sold a couple years back, so I got to revisit the images from that piece and remind myself how I approached that painting in order to move forward on this one.
It’s never the goal to make an exact replica, but any time I’m starting a commission based on a previous painting, I like to study the original reference painting and parse out how I approached the layers, color blocking, what I did with certain key brushstrokes, and get back into the mindset I had when creating that piece in order to work in a similar mode when approaching the new commission. (I actually did a much smaller commission last month based off the same painting!)
Okay, I know I included this painting in a previous In the Making when it was still on the back side of a bigger linen canvas, BUT now it’s finally stretched right-side-up! I wanted to keep a peek of the raw linen around the edges, so I opted for a sliiightly larger 48x46” stretcher.
Also last month I hosted a small homeschool co-op group for a morning painting session. I loved seeing what each person decided to paint and the choices they made throughout the process. I’ve noticed that kids often have much fewer inhibitions when it comes to making art - they usually seem far less concerned by doing things the “right” way, but instead easily decide what to paint, grab the colors they like best and dive right in. Broom with a fiery orange background?? Yes, please! It’s a good reminder to not take it too seriously and just have fun painting. (I always feel hesitant to post kid faces on the internet so artist emojis it is!)
And now I’m in planning mode for a group of paintings that will go to a gallery in June. It will be a mix of landscapes and abstracts, but I wanted to get a feel for what direction I might take things. These sketches aren’t necessarily final concepts, but they are a definite starting point. I want to challenge myself to allow my landscapes to get looser, let larger blocks of color sit on the canvas without feeling like I need to add texture and detail to every part. A couple of these studies are a bit tighter and more detailed than I want the final paintings to be, so I’ll probably do another round or two of sketches (and try to loosen up!) before I move to canvas.
And that’s all for now! Next I’ll start a small landscape commission for a golf course/resort not far from here, and continue working on the gallery collection.
Thanks for following along as I share about all these paintings in the making!