I got tired of having my little paintings festooning every window and door frame in the house. I actually made this very rudimentary rack to display some of them for a craft show I went to in the Fall, but it works very well as a place to dry my oils.
Further work on my commission
Here is my further progress on my pet portrait commission. I have tried to punch up the contrast a bit but I am still very unsure of the expressions. My source material is so scant and I barely know the annimals in question having only “met” them once. I guess I will let this dry for a bit and then finish it off.
Cuddles & Minou
I have always avoided commissions (usually by quoting such an exorbitant price that I manage to scare the client away). I was once asked to do something “about this big” (gesture with hands to indicate a piece about 24″X36″) in “browns and blues to go over my daughters bed”. Her budget was around $200, I suggested she visit imagekind and select something she liked. I have finally got a commission that I haven’t been able to avoid though. It is a portrait of two pets, the only “children” of a couple of friends of mine. I visited and tried to get some photographs but was unable to catch them together, I also have a couple of snapshots provided by the client, one is literally of their backs. I have put together a pastiche with Photoshop and am trying to paint something from that. I kinda feel like it is the commission from hell. I have never been a pet portraitist, the only animals I have painted being my own, ones I know intimately and don’t really need photos for.
Here is my progress so far. I will come back to it after the holiday and see if I can pull my ass out of the fire.
I have been neglecting my Daily Painting recently, partly because I have been up to my ears in House painting. It isn’t as creative but it is very time consuming and very necessary. My house is 140 years old and original clapboard. We ended up re-siding the West wall because there wasn’t a board worth saving but the rest we have mostly scraped and repainted with just a few boards replaced here and there. We aren’t quite finished yet and probably will need to leave all the doors and shutters for next year, but the back of it is broken (and almost mine too!).
This is less a post than a question. I seem to be committed to taking part in a Christmas craft show. It is a local event organized by a bunch of Etsy sellers, so it will include jewellers, dressmakers etc. I have never done anything like this before and I find myself at a bit of a loss as to how best to display my stuff. I will be selling (or hoping to) mostly my Daily Paintings which are all very small, 4″X6″ to 8″X10″. I have dozens, maybe even hundreds, and I certainly don’t intend to frame them all. When I sell them through Etsy I sell them unframed. Should I try to set them out on a table, maybe on plate racks? Should I try to build some screens with ridges that the paintings can be propped on? Anyway, I will keep you posted on what I decide to do, but any suggestions would be most welcome.
I spent some more time finishing off my pochade.
I replaced the hinges and clasp and made a brace from a couple of mending strips. I have an old camera tripod which is missing the block that is supposed to screw into the camera. So I made a mounting block out of three pieces of boxwood and glued and screwed them into the botom of the cigar box. I actually used it today for one of my Daily Paintings. I am still on the look out for some accessories. I need a suitable palette and a way of securing it in the box so that I can transport it without the paint getting all over everything. I would also like to find a good way to secure the panel while painting. Watch this space.
Well I made some progress today. Whether this will be worth the time I am putting into it remains to be seen. I must have spent two hours this morning seeking out the right hardware. Everything I have read insists that it is essential to replace the existing hardware with something sturdier, so I have found some small brass hinges, a new clasp and a pair of brass “mending strips” to use for a brace. I have also used some box wood from a fruit box (the sort of thing that mandarin oranges come in) to reinforce the back and front where the new hinges and clasps will be attached. The cigar box is made from very thin cedar and I want something for the screws to go into. I cut the reinforcing strips with a box cutter and am gluing them with carpenters glue. So far so good.
I have been thinking for some time that I wanted to replace my antique pochade with something a little less precious. The one I have belonged to my grandfather and is at least 100 years old. I have looked at the commercially available ones and they are mostly too big, too expensive or too fancy. I have read a couple of blog-posts about making them out of cigar boxes and so I want to give it a try.
One of the advantages of working in a tourist town is that although there may be a shortage of many necessities, like a pharmacy or hardware store, we do have a cigar store and my American readers might be shocked to note that it sells Cuban cigars. They sell the fancier wooden boxes for five dollars but they give away the paper-covered ones. It is the wooden one with the recessed lid that I need for my project but I couldn’t resist picking up a couple of the others as well. They are so attractive and I am sure I can use them for something. On the bottom of the pile you can see my current box.
The next step is to replace the hardware with something a little more sturdy. I will try to post again as I progress.