This painting is my second attempt at a landscape including someone’s house.
I tried to rush the original painting, since the (well-meaning) client kept asking, “Is it done yet?” and the pressure was driving me up the wall.
Heavy hints hadn’t deterred the client from being pushy. Saying, outright, “That’s not helpful,” seemed to get lost in the conversation.
The result: Great colors and a truly terrible composition.
After struggling with this work for months, and watching the painting get progressively worse following each comment from the client, I took out a utility knife one night and cut up the canvas.
(I also photographed the pieces, tacked on the wall, as an installation. It felt very satisfying, though my husband was horrified until I explained what I was doing.)
Those pieces are waiting to be turned into something craftsy. The colors were gorgeous, so I’ll probably use the shredded canvas as beads or dimensional art.
Several weeks later, I could distance myself from the steady pings by the homeowner. That’s when I realized I needed to make the house the centerpiece. It did the setting a disservice, to focus on it as an architectural rendering.
If the painting was about the setting of the house — as if the house was a gem — the imagery might work.
And frankly, I think that’s what the client wanted, anyway. It was all about her house.
Then, I spent most of a day on site, creating two plein air sketches of the house and its setting. I began to understand the importance of painting lyrically.
Feeling a sense of relief and accomplishment, I gave those two canvases to the client. I was pleased with them; I’m still not sure if she was.
(My experience has been: When I simply give art to someone, there’s less than a 50/50 chance they’ll express obvious appreciation of it. It’s as if something free has no value to them. That’s okay. I’ll continue to give art to people because… well, that’s what I do, sometimes.)
Then, I spent several days photographing the landscape from a variety of viewpoints, near & far, at ground level and from some nearby elevations. That gave me a broader context for the painting.
So far, so good. The initial composition worked — laid in with cadmium red paint — and it was building gradually but well.
The photo at left shows the work, as it was a couple of weeks ago. Several of the red composition lines were still visible at that point.
Though the blue-gray area at the front is supposed to represent a road, I wanted it to connect with the water feature near the house. So far, that’s not quite working.
Each layer of paint adds more features. The background is (I think) mostly completed, though I may need to simplify & soften it for perspective.
Now, I’m working on the foreground. Every layer and color is being added with the idea of how it will look underneath a later layer.
The photo at right shows its current level of completion. Most of the red in the foreground is from the underpainting; it will be concealed, later.
Also, I’m altering the road-like proportions so it’s not quite such a flat echo of the golden area to its immediate right.
(When two areas of a painting are too similar, it can make the finished work less interesting.)
However, I’m rapidly approaching completion on this painting. Well… as “rapidly” as one can, waiting three weeks or so between layers of paint. (The thicker the paint and the more white in it, the slower it dries.)
In November, I predicted three or four more layers of paint, with a completion date in late January or during February. (That will depend on how frequently the client calls me, asking if it’s done yet. Clearly, she doesn’t understand the creative process. And I should have set the terms more firmly, before accepting the commission.)
The house will probably remain just a suggestion, with only a few more details than you see now. It’s the centerpiece, of course, but the painting is about the setting that makes the house dazzling.
Keeping my focus on that is getting me through this, but there’s a good chance I’ll never accept a commission again.
I’m going to make this the best possible painting, anyway. So there.
Hmmm cute pictures. Painting made by a child, looks so.