Chad and Angie's Sunset - Step One

My first project - a 2ft x 3ft sunset - chosen by my brother and sister in law. After a few days work, we are officially at what I call "Step One". Step one is the state where the general idea of the painting is in place, but it still kind of looks like crap. Of course, the crappy lighting and the fact that I took this picture of the painting with my phone doesn't help anything....

This picture is the very definition of why I love painting with oils. You start with a dark base, and work upward toward the lighter colors. This gives the whole painting a feeling and texture that is lacking with other mediums. Also, it is therapeutic because you slap a crapload of black paint on a white canvas (there is NOTHING uglier than a blank white canvas) and from then on you are correcting it.

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Bringing light to the darkness - clarity to the murky unknown. It is forgiving, and any mistake for the most part is minor - and fixing it only adds to the character of the finished product. I love oils.

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To critique my own work thus far...

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"Finished"

1. I love the edges of the black background, the blending and unevenness of the whole thing.

2. The lines and general distribution of the colors in the sky

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"Needs Work"

1. That blue is wayyyy to electric. It needs more serenity.

2. The yellow in the middle needs a bit of breaking up - kind of alarming

3. The clouds are a bit hokey right now - they need to be a bit less "cloudy". This ain't a Dora cartoon. What is UP with that cartoon, anyway? It sucks.

4. The water. It makes me agitated. The most beautiful part of this picture is a small break in the clouds at the level of the water, and the resulting depth and reflection draws you in. I need to capture that.

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So - I have a bit more work to do. But after this, I already have my second project! I get to paint Amen Corner. I will attempt not to fall asleep due to flashbacks of long afternoons spent watching the Masters. Of course that was before I had kids. Now, if I attempted to watch the Masters there would be a one year old face planting on the tile directly in front of me and a three year old running around yelling that he can't get his pants back on and needs a jelly bean....

Portfolio

Some examples of things I've done along the way....

Painting aside, I do love me some crafting. You could never guess who these letters were for. These were my first set, and now I've even found an awesome distributor that can do all different fonts, sizes, and thicknesses (as Shelley learned with Caroline and her crazy alphabet wall).


This is actually my first real painting. Tony saw a piece of artwork that he loved and I thought - "hey, that would be a good graduation present". Then I saw that it cost $5000. I went and bought a canvas and some paint brushes and took a whack at it. The result is below.

This one is actually a portrait. If you asked me to do a portrait from a creative standpoint, it would be along these lines - but of course nothing like this. This is Kaylie Marie. She is one of a kind.

I haven't done people (I do love hands, but faces are difficult for me) - but I would be willing to try, and if the result looked like a 90 year old hooker, you would not be on the hook for the pricetag.

I do love landscapes with vivid color. This one is the drive-up of my Great Aunts' house in Jellico, TN. I would always tag along with my Mom when she visited in the fall and the trees were so beautiful.

This last one is kind of an aside. These were little initial nameplates that I did for all of the girls that hosted my first baby shower. This picture actually reminds me that I need to get crackin on the 7 or 8 more that are needed as a result of all the birthings.

So here are the examples of past work. I can do straight lines, but they take me longer than something that is more abstract. And I'm up for anything - bring it. I love texture and blended colors and I can scale about any picture to any size. The giant painting that I did for my parents started out as a faded Polaroid.

Here I go...

I'm making the jump - ready to actually paint something for someone for something.

In the past, I've been very reluctant to take any sort of commission - I would make a painting for a friend just as something fun for maybe a birthday or a special occassion. I felt that painting for profit would be exploiting an outlet that brought me joy, and that would result in the eventual dumping of the whole thing. I loved it that way - then.

Fast forward to now. "Then" was two kids ago. "Now", there is no such thing as a spare moment between squeezing as much time with my kids in as possible, and when they are in bed there is housework and prepping for the day ahead always staring me in the face.

Kind of funny, but this has all resulted in an about-face in my thinking. Before, taking any sort of commission made it feel dirty, now it gives it purpose. If I get a little something for my painting, I can take it and put in the boys' college accounts, and the guilt over "things undone" in that 8:30 pm - 10:30 pm timeframe before I go to bed isn't so prominent.

That's why I'm calling this site "Painting for Learning". I really am, in more ways than one. I'm painting to expand my horizons. Before, I would only make a painting for a friend or family member that I wanted to make because it appealed to ME. Now, I might be working on stuff that is a little outside my comfort zone. Also, I'm painting for my boys' learning - because let me tell you, between two daycares there ain't a whole ton to be throwing into the college accounts these days. Bring the learning ON.

So there. I'm for hire. Now how do I get someone to hire me? I'm starting out cheap. Like that's anything new.