Painting on Commission

Be true to yourself...and your client!

I like to think of myself as being a pretty flexible artist and business person. Being married for 35 years has taught me to be accommodating, compromising and a good listener although she may argue a bit with the last point!

Listening to your current and potential customers, whether through social media, at shows, via emails or face-to-face is an all-important skill that I learned from my sales and marketing management days. You can't go wrong being a good listener. After all over 70% of effective selling is listening... to what your customers want and need... not giving them what they want to hear!

I am a small business person first and an artist second. Many would argue that we artists need not worry about the "business" since sales will come if our art is good...and accepted. Well that may happen but nothing is sold without a maker and a buyer getting together to close a deal. 

My product, the art, is unique to me in that I made it! Think of it! We create, find a market, communicate its availability and our product (hopefully) sells. Nothing could be better!

I get asked from time to time if I will create a painting from reference that is not mine but holds special meaning to the potential client. Firstly I ask if it is their own reference photo. If not I usually ( unless I have something similar) pass. I also can go to the site, do plein air sketches and take my own reference shots.

One recent commission happened by chance. A Facebook friend saw one of my posts about a new painting I did and inquired if it was for sale. Unfortunately it had just sold but I offered to paint a similar, not the exact, scene as a commission. I sent the reference shot off and it was accepted with my caveat that I can take creative license which was agreed along with the 50% down payment. They loved the sky reflections and the ripples in the water. The dramatic sunrise was inspiring for them. It was to be a Christmas present. I listened.

I completed the painting in about 2 weeks and since it was for a local collector I hand delivered it to their home and even helped with suggestions, as asked during negotiations, on its placement in the home. The client was thrilled with it and after a leisurely coffee together I made my way home with the final payment. 

Funny thing happened that evening. My client couldn't wait until Christmas to give it to her husband so she gave it to him that night!  I like to think that she was really happy and excited about the painting! So was he!!

Here's the painting:

"One Summer Day" by Warren Peterson. 16" x 20" acrylic on canvas

I've learned a lot of lessons in my 40 some odd years of painting, selling and marketing but the key one has always been that there is nothing like a happy customer. 

Remember that the best advertising is Word Of Mouth, so be true to yourself as a business person and artist while being true to your customers. You can't go wrong with this lesson.

Two Paintings Can Go A Long Way!

Letting Your Babies Go!

Funny how things just come together sometimes! The collector who purchased the two paintings in my previous post just bought one more based on an email that I sent out! Here's the painting.

"It's a Good Day" by Warren Peterson - 16" x  20" 

In addition a new collector contacted me to commission a sunrise painting based on the one above! That painting is in the works.

I had a solo show this past July and also had a jury select me for inclusion into the Queens Walk Art Show in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. New works were shown including:

"One Spring Morning" by Warren Peterson - 16" x 20" 

 "One Spring Morning" is a departure for me in that I was more interested in the tonal effects vs. a panoramic landscape. This painting has been submitted to the Northern Ontario Art Association jury show.

"Nature's Paintbrush" by Warren Peterson 5" x 7" 

"Nature's Paintbrush" is sold as well, to local collectors who also have one of my works. They saw it at the Queens Walk Show and called me a few days later to purchase it. This painting is one of my smallest works and I really like the way it turned out so more are in the making at this size. For example, here's...

"Taking the Long View" by Warren Peterson - 5" x  7" 

I think I will try this size plein air!

My solo show generated a lot of publicity and two of my favourite paintings sold, both to new collectors!

This one, "Standing Guard, Agawa Canyon" can be seen from start to finish in the Demonstration page in my web site here http://www.warrenpetersonfineart.com/demonstration.html

I have my "special" ones and this is one of them:

"Standing Guard - Agawa Canyon by Warren Peterson - 9" x 12" 

I do a lot of plein air painting in the Fall and one of my favourites, "Sand River Rapids" was also sold at my solo show.  This was bought as a gift to the purchasers' son as a new house warming gift. They love the painting! Here it is:

"Sand River Rapids" by Warren Peterson - 10" x 12" 

Next up -  From Doodle to Painting! How to take an idea to a completed landscape painting.

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Getting Intimate With Nature

New Works

I chose the title to help convey a very real feeling I get every time I put brush to canvas. It's hard to describe but if you can get outdoors to sit, hear, smell and taste the great outdoors with it's clean air and natural sounds you'll know what I mean. These new paintings are intimate "portraits" of those special moments. 

I've been busy preparing for a new art show and here's a few pictures of some new paintings that will be in my upcoming jury entrance only Queens Walk Art Show in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada. 

Belleveu Morning 16"x20". Our local park on an early morning walk

The Long View 5" x 7"

Island Hopping 5" x 7"

"One Of A Thousand" 8" x 10" - One of the thousand or so islands in the Thousand Islands

"The Landscape Art of Warren Peterson" solo art show is now on!

25 Paintings on View July 1-31, 2012

I haven't blog for a while and this is why! You can now view the largest selection of my paintings in one place from July 1-31 at the Canadian Bushplane Heritage Centre in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario.

All are for sale and a portion of every sale goes to support the CBHC.

Some of my largest and smallest works are on display including a selection of my plein air works that I am selling. Here's a few that you can see live!

"Fall on the Goulais" 10"x12" plein air

"Fall" -  9"x12" 

"Hanging On" - 9"x12"

"Storm's a coming" 24"x36"

" The Wild One" 18"x24"

"What a View" 24"x48"

New Collectors for Warren Peterson Fine Art

A short intermission from my regular blog.

I love it when a new collector comes forward and wants to buy one of my landscape paintings.

But when one comes forward and wants to buy two I want to make some noise!!

So here's my " Yahooooo!"

Lake Superior Sunset and I'm Not Moving are destined for Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to an old acquaintance and her husband.

Congrats to the new owners. I appreciate your business and love for my work!

I'm Not Moving by Warren Peterson
36"x24" Acrylic on board

Lake Superior Sunset by Warren Peterson
11"x14" Acrylic on board

Simply Put, Plein Air Rocks!

To KISS or not to KISS.....that is the question!

I'm going to post a few short examples of plein air work to illustrate how important it is to think shapes, light and values when painting outdoors.

I'm sure most of you have heard of KISS ( no, not the band) but in case you haven't it means - Keep It Simple Stupid. It's something that I try to subscribe to, especially when I paint en plein air. 

When you're outdoors at all kinds of different locations and weather it is doubly important to think KISS. Why? Because your time is valuable and light doesn't care about your time, so you need to learn how to get your impression of the scene down quickly, accurately and with your emotive response to it in paint. 

Fall on the Goulais - 8"x10" by Warren Peterson Fine Art

This small work is a good example of getting it down quick but with emotion and clarity. It shows the light direction, various species of trees and has a foreground, mid ground and background. The idea is to get the general shape of the hills and tree colours down fat while holding onto that first emotive response to the scene -  the OMG what a view! Here's another one.

Off Ranger Lake Road - 10"x12" by Warren Peterson Fine Art

This sketch is one of my favourites. It has all the elements of a good painting with delineated focal point and a simple handling of the background to keep the foreground trees etc as the focal point in the picture plane.

You can't replicate a fine fall day in Northern Ontario in paint but you can try to get that first emotion down while transferring what your eyes sees to what you feel on the board.

More to come on this.

You can see a whole range of plein air and studio woks on my web site, connected via "About Me" on the right hand side of this blog.

New Work

This is one of my new paintings. It's called " What a View". 24" x 48" on gallery wrapped canvas. It is currently available for purchase. Contact me for details.

"What a View" 24" x48" by Warren Peterson Fine Art

I'm a tree hugger!

A funny thing happened to me on way to becoming the landscape artist I am. I became a tree hugger! I love trees. Any kind of tree but especially Pine trees. Their hardiness, diversity and character all speak to me as an artist and naturalist.

I live in a part of the world where pine, cedar and spruce trees are common and if I drive a few hours north just about all I will see is pine since I live close to the edge of the Boreal Forest, where deciduous trees begin to make way for coniferous forests.  The White Pine is my favourite.

Pines dominate the landscape

       
It grows to a great height (up to 100 meters or about 300 ft.) and mature specimens can dominate the landscape vistas as seen here in these pictures. It's a great tree to paint in that it's branches look like out-stretched arms embracing the sun and the land below.

They offer shelter to birds and forest animals. One close to my cottage studio on Lake Superior has a Bald Eagle nest and the adults come back every year to raise their young.

It's not a hard tree to paint but it takes some finessing when you get down to details to help bring out their individual characters.

Detail -  The Wild One

To paint pines I like to start with a solid foundation that will either present itself as a forest or an individual tree. For this I use a mixture of Hookers Green, Dioxazine Purple and Burnt Sienna. This gives me a nice warm dark that suits their basic structure and will provide the shadow areas for the tree branches or masses.

Here in this detail from "The Wild One" you can see how I blocked in this mixture over the sky. I kept it very loose and transparent.

The Wild One

I don't worry about details at this point as all I am concerned with is getting the overall shape of the forest area and individual trees on the right down. Over this I rough in, with very loose brush strokes, a light green using Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow Light and a touch of Cadmium Red Medium and Yellow Ochre to grey it down. I mix up a number of pools with lighter to darker values of this mixture on my palette. I pay close attention to the way I want the branches to lie and the dappled sunlight hitting the highlight areas. I have an old watercolour brush with a slanted edge that I use for this. I virtually stab the paint onto the canvas to get this effect and look for happy accidents.

Detail - Rocky Mountains

Here you can see the stabbing effect over the darker base. I treat this almost like stippling with the brush, rapidly moving over the area to give it some semblance of randomness that you see in forests and trees from a distance. The eye fills in the blanks!

The detail below is from a 9"x12" painting. Here you can see the darker base area with the overlay of lighter green to highlight the sun lit edges.

Keep it loose but be sure of your shapes and the direction of the tree's branches to keep it life-like.

Detail -  Standing Guard, Agawa Canyon

This very old White Pine, is located in the Agawa Canyon Park which is about 

a 3 hour train ride north from my home town of Sault Ste. Marie. Every year thousands

of people travel to the canyon for a few hours and a few decide to camp out there. 

This area was made famous by Canada"s Group of Seven artists during their trips 

here in 1918-20. 

 Here's the paintings for the two 

previous detail shots to show you

how it looks at full image

When you're out and about sit 

down a really look at trees.

And while you're there take

a deep breath and hug

a tree since without 

them we wouldn't be alive.