New Home for this Landscape!.......Oil Painting

I love it when I get to see my work in it's forever home.  I even got to see this one in person.  It looks like it was made to go there.  But then, that's what a commission is, isn't it?  It was, indeed, actually MADE to go right there!

Birth of an Oil Painting.....Happy Birth Day.

This is a photo of my finished commission for my client in Missouri....still wet on the easle. 

Yes, I am happy happy happy and I hope the owners will be as well. 

That glass looks like you can pick it up and drink out of it (if it wasn't empty!)  I added the little marks that make the glass on the wine glass and the salt & pepper shakers come to life.  Mostly the less you can add and the more you can imply the better off you are where glass is concerned. 

The lable on the wine bottle is another favorite spot for me.  My client sent me a bottle from one of his favorite local wineries in Missouri.  At the bottom of the lable in tiny letters you can read Hermann MO.  How personal!  My goal with lables is to have them just realistic enough that they are not just generic, anonymous spaces....but not so bogged down in detail that you can read everything word for word.  I want them to evoke the image, but not photocopy it. 

What I try to create is what I told my client in an email...A blend of a very representational piece that is very literal at first glance but then if you look you see the basic "loose-ness" and "expressiveness"  that is the root of impressionistic painting. That is why I love the little imperfect parts...messy edges and the sides of the bottles and the s & p shakers that are not totally matchy-matchy. This is what keeps you looking at a painting long after your eyes have told your brain that this is a painting of some bottles and stuff on a table.

That is why I paint.

"Imported" Wine Bottles...Oil Painting...Commission

"Imported Wine Bottles".....36x48........Oil......Commission(sold)

This is a commissioned painting for a nice gentleman in Missouri. He found me via my blog (Yay blog!) by googling wine bottle artist (yay Google!). This is the second largest piece I have done.


I loved working on this painting! The wine bottles were "imported" to me, here in Mississippi, from Missouri. Each one is from a local Missouri winery that Jim and his wife have visited and each one has an interesting story to go with it.


It was a long back and forth process but this past week the painting finally went to its new home and Jim is very happy with it which makes me VERY happy!


Commissions are a diferent breed of painting....I explained it to Jim this way:


For a commissioned painting to be successful...

• first you have to realize what it is, exactly, that you want
• then you have to communicate that to me
• then I have to understand what you are saying that you want
• then I have to get my eyes, brain and brushes to execute what I heard that you want
• then when you see it you interpret, in your own way, to decide if it is what you wanted

There are many points along the way where a disconect can occur. I think my years of painting murals in people's homes have helped me to be a good listener when it comes to what people want. I recognize some of the pitfalls and ask a LOT of questions. When a client says "I want it to be sort of like this picture" I ask what it is they like about it. Sometimes the end result bears little resemblance to the orginal inspiration. But that's the fun of it!