Commission work - to do or not to do

Have you ever been in a position when someone asks you to produce a specific painting for them? Some artists embrace commissions with enthusiasm while others shun them altogether.

If you're having difficulty deciding if you wanted to paint a commission, here are some pros and cons to consider:

Pros:

• There is a great sense of satisfaction in converting a person's vision into a beautiful painting
• Many people charge more for commissions so you can make more money
• Some commissions offer artistic challenges and this improves your portfolio.

Cons:

• Painting something specific for a client adds additional pressure to the artist
• Sometimes the business relationships doesn't work out. Some clients are too demanding, controlling or hard to please can make the commission experience a bad one.
• When asked to do something different, many artists underestimate the level of effort and are challenged in delivering on time.
• The subject could be out of the artists comfort zone and not end with positive results.

If someone is interested in creating commissions, I've heard that there are websites that connect painters with collectors.  Under these and similar situations, you might want to consider getting some protection in the form of a contract.  The contract lays out the terms and conditions (e.g. when the work is due, and when preliminary sketches or photos of work in progress are required), including payments.  There are numerous sample contracts on the internet.  Check it out, if you are interested.

On the issues of costs, some artists ask their clients for up to 50% of the costs. However, some only accept payment when a customer is happy with the final commission.

Here is this week's art find  from Mariano Galan:

Have a great week,
Danielle

Tips for painting loose

Last weekend I attended a workshop with Doug Mays. He is a talented Canadian watercolourist. He has a loose style that I admire. Of course I won’t be painting loose after just one workshop. However, I did learn a few tips that I should work on and thought I’d share them with you:

Tip: Paint standing up
Painting while standing makes it harder to add details.  By being further from the paper, you are required to make broad strokes that flow.

Tip: Use a big brush
Painting with a big brush makes it harder to add details. A big brush encourages you to use your whole arm to make broad and sweeping strokes. Preferably, use a flat brush instead of a round one because you're wanting to paint strokes with greater impact.  I use mostly round brushes so this one is not easy.

Tip: Leave stuff out
It’s more interesting for the viewer if he or she uses his brains to fill in missing details. Therefore, there is no need to put down every single thing. Take a long hard look at your subject, trying to decide which are the essential bits.

Tip: Step back often
Step away from your painting often and then decide whether you want more detail or not. You'll be surprised at how little can be necessary to capture the essence of something.  Try squinting the eyes to see large shapes - to see essential shapes.

Tip: User fewer strokes
If you look carefully at a loosely painted watercolour, you’ll often note there are few stokes. Each stroke looks confident. These artists put down paint once, correctly, and then leave it. Any touching up kills it. This means you have to go slowly and deliberately. Loose looks fast, but as far as I can tell, it is slow.  I've also notice that these artists tend to work with a thicker consistency of paint than I do - it's been described as buttermilk consistency and in some areas butter consistency.

I'm sure that there are many more tips out there. However, why not go at it slowly as it is not easy to learn a new style.

Here is a painting from Doug Mays:

Have a great week,
Danielle

Painting light to dark or dark to light?

Most watercolourists paint from light to dark. Most instructors, books and videos teach us to start with the lightest colors and tones, and build our way up to the darkest. I find that the traditional method of applying watercolor with light washes and building with darker layers of paint certainly has its benefits.  However, this approach has a few disadvantages:

• Some of the darks often become muddy and lose their naturalness through the layering process;
• It’s difficult to have a point of reference (light vs dark) when everything is light, consequently you may lose some of the areas you might have wanted to keep lighter. You may not have enough different values;
• It's sometimes difficult to see that the darkest areas could be darker. 

You might want to experiment with putting down dark colors early on in the process of painting as it takes care of the above challenges. Often this leads to paintings that are rich and have brilliant lights. 

Probably fewer artists paint completely dark to light.  Take a look at this video from Jake Winkle as he demonstrates his dark to light technique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7k9INN5C-hY

 

What’s your preference?

For the most part I paint light to dark, however I do like to insert a few darks early on in the process. It helps me anchor some large shapes and in some cases it creates early linkages within the painting. For some landscapes, I like to block in certain shapes, such as darker tree trunks early on in the painting process to help establish a relationship with the values that come after.  Applying darks early also helps me in visualizing my painting more fully. As I’ve experimented with some paintings that are a bit more complicated, such as a branch of apple blossoms (many petals), painting a first coat of darker greens on the leaves helps me see through the multitude of petals, as all the shapes start looking like petals.

 

Tell me about your experience.

 

Today's artist find is Wayne Mueller:

 

Have  a great weekend,

Danielle