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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Brushwork Through Thick or Thin.

There comes a time in a painter's life that the brush seems to take on a life of it's own, especially when painting en plein air. Lots of practise and many mistakes imprint themselves over time, making your instinctive handling of a passage look easy to some but all those maddening and wonderful mistakes add up to confidence with a brush especially when chasing the light outdoors.

Those strokes also seem to take you to another place when you're back in the studio working the sketches up into larger works, so much so that when you stick your nose into the finished work you sometimes say to yourself "how did I do that?".

The Painterly Approach 

Detail -  Man Vs. Wild 

I'm going to spend some time on this blog looking at how brushwork, with a loaded brush or in a thinly painted passage, can add substance to your paintings in the field or back in your studio.

I've taken sections from a few of my works ( you can see the whole paintings in my web site linked via About Me to the right) that in their own right could be assumed to be full works on their own. Click on each image for a larger view.

Look at this detail to the left. After loosely painting in the tree trunk I took my mid value green and laid it on to establish the main masses. This was a nice summer day with some wind so I wanted to highlight the haphazard growth on this old pine and the storm damaged broken top.

Next I took a green on one side of the brush and another lighter one on the other side. Applying the darker side with a sweeping motion laid in a good strong background on top of which I quickly applied the lighter green very lightly to pick up the darker under colour. I moved on to other sections to let this dry. While doing so the light changed a bit, throwing some deeper shadows under the branches. I liked this and added the darkest strokes to capture that moment.

Detail - Breezy Day. Private collection.

You have to work fast at this with acrylics and, as I said earlier, it takes some practise but the sweeping, loaded brush effect can add a lot of depth. Your brain can add in the details.

This is another example and the "thick over thin" method can be seen here. I usually work from background to foreground, top to bottom so I can overlay the various passages. This was a very windy day and I painted the clouds first in thin washes of blue, gray and white for this section. The loose brushwork in the clouds adds movement to simulate the wind direction. After laying in the tree trunk I took a very loaded brush and carefully added the wind-swept branches and needles of this very old pine in the same direction as the clouds. A light, stabbing upward motion with the brush, coupled with holding it horizontal provided some happy notes on the board. I was in the moment.

Detail - On the Agawa. Private collection.

When travelling I usually take about 6-8 colours with me. You never know when one will work better than another. I do have standard palette.

For this painting to the left I only took my 4 basic palette colours as the location, the Agawa Canyon, is located in a very remote area. I had Cadmium Yellow Light, Ultramarine Blue, Alizarin Crimson and Titanium White. This detail is from a painting that was done in about 90 minutes as I had to catch the train back to the city. After laying in the sky and a darker value for the distant mountains in this canyon I went to work on the mixture of hardwood and pine trees. I worked from background dark trees to mid-ground light to foreground dark again. I used a different brush technique on the light green trees by taking a loaded brush, holding it at the tip of the handle and slowly let gravity take over as I gently let it drag from top to bottom holding the brush parallel to the board. I carried the green as a light wash over the distant blue hills to create their treed tops.

Thin and loose. A great combination for distant views

Detail - Pancake Bay

Keeping your paint passages thin, that is without impasto, is a great way to simulate distant places in the picture. These pull you eye back and when combined with receding values give the illusion of depth on a two dimensional surface.

Here you can see how I modulated the background hill with values and various shapes in the brushstrokes to show their underlying structures, vegetation and shadows from the clouds, whose shapes were first blocked in with gray and overlaid with a light white/blue mix. By pushing the clouds shapes around from up-sweeping brush strokes and dabbing semi-white highlights you can get a nice transition between the darker belly of the cloud and the lighter tops. Adding the darker trees at the lake edge further enhances the distance between the lake and the hills.

Detail - Spring Morning Algoma. Private collection.

 Holding your brushwork in reserve is a specific strategy that you can use to ensure that the mood of the painting and its emotive statement is conveyed to the viewer. The detail to the right is from an 18"x24" painting where brushwork was subordinated to colour value and shapes. I wanted a more slick surface in the final painting to give the viewer a chance to set themselves on the shore and look to the distant hills that are too far for details. Your eyes fill in those distant details. The mid-ground shadowed areas act as a foil to draw your eye to the sunny hills and lighter foreground in the finished painting acts as a step into the picture.

You can view the full painting images on my web site via the About Me section at the top right. You will find them in the Plein Air and Archive galleries and can click on them to enlarge.  While there take a look at the Demonstration page to see more of my technique.

Moments of Reflection + new "Skies" painting

Painting shore reflections on water

One of the joys of painting landscapes with acrylics is using their natural transparency to your advantage when painting shoreline reflections in a lake or river scene. I could go on for a long time on this as I find them a challenging and very satisfying subject to paint but I will be discussing this topic over several post.

Water is a colourless liquid that reflects the surrounding atmosphere and land. Depending on the water clarity and weather a reflection can be mirror-like to very broken up.

Detail of photo - Reflections on a quiet pond 

As you can see in the photo I took last fall at a pond not far from my home the still water and sunny day makes for a very mirror-like reflection of the shoreline and trees.

Note how the reflections are muted and almost hang straight down into the water. Reflected details become "smudged" and typically are bit darker than their source.

Click on the image from my photo to see an enlargement.

Detail - Large version of Standing Guard, Agawa Canyon

When I paint reflection of a shore on quiet water I usually start with what the land and/or sky looks like and carry the colours from those passages into the water. In the example to the right I painted the reflections by taking each shore passage directly into the water while I painted the trees etc. Using a  more painterly brushstroke I normally paint thr reflection a a stright down passage and add subtle details later. More and more layers of transparent glazes are used in the shore and for the reflection. Over these I paint a watered down glaze of pure ultramarine/cobalt blue or a glaze of Alizarin Crimson over the green.

Detail - Fine Day, Algoma

In the detail of Fine day, Algoma (private Collection) you can see what I mean about dragging your image of trees and shore directly downwards into the water. This scene also shows how the sky reflection takes on a darker blue.

I also placed some discrete blue passages very lightly over the reflections to give the illusion of water and I softened the edges to "smudge" and mute the reflected areas..

There is a full demonstration page in my web site that shows how I painted the smaller version of Standing Guard, Agawa Canyon that has a lot of reflected shore on water passages. Check it out. You can access via "About Me" in the top right

New Painting - "Storm Over Superior" - Acrylic on 24"x24" gallery wrapped canvas.

This new painting shows my love for the sky and clouds. Lake Superior can be very dramatic and this scene takes the Lake's drama to a new level for me. I took some creative liberties on this while painting the clouds. More of these to come. This one here is for sale. Contact me for details.

"Storm over Superior"  by Warren Peterson

Warren Peterson Fine Art First Blog

Natural Spaces. Wild Places

Here I am, a new blogger. This blog will follow my journey as an artist, naturalist, outdoor lover, workshop teacher and life-long learner as I travel my road.

First and foremost I am an artist living near the shores of Lake Superior, the largest fresh water lake in the world . I have been making art for over 40 years and as an artist my landscape paintings and drawings strive to capture our Natural Spaces and Wild Places, hence the name of this blog.

This blog will preview my new work in addition to my web site that you can visit by going to
www.warrenpetersonfineart.com

I will demonstrate or describe how I do what I do, show you the places I paint and provide enough information so that an artist can follow what I did and a viewer or collector can understand why I did it. It should be fun, entertaining and informative.

I paint in acrylics and watercolours, usually on canvas now but I use to paint exclusively on masonite. I liked the smooth surface but I found that canvas allowed me to loosen up my work and to get a more painterly approach. The work on the right is called " Master Of His Domain" 20"x24" and it depicts a waterfall that that I have painted twice now. It's located about 45 minutes outside my home town and can be a raging torrent or a smaller cascade depending on the weather and snow melt in the spring.

I have a home studio that suits my needs but I love to get outdoors to paint "en plein air". I paint more directly with a loaded brush and limited palette as can be seen on this example below.

This is acrylic, 10"x12" on masonite. I usually paint on this board outdoors as it provides a  strong surface to take some of the transportation punishment they get and I like being able to cut it down to various sizes. I double coat these with gesso an sand to a fairly smooth surface.

I will be posting details on my techniques and showing pictures of the places I visit, sometimes with my wife and two dogs.

There you have it. Time to see if I can get my settings on the blog right!