What I Do

I am not quite clear if I have even stated the purpose of what this blog is really for.  In this particular entry I'll sort of walk you through the progression.

I may not have stated this earlier, but I accept commissioned works (priced on a sliding scale based on my client's requests of size, medium, and degree of difficulty of the particular piece).  My three favorite mediums that I would consider my strengths would be watercolor, acrylic, and traditional graphite.  For instance, two good friends of mine recently got married.  On their honeymoon they had the fortuitous opportunity to capture one of the most striking images I've ever seen taken by someone who isn't a professional photographer:

pelican reference picture

They sent this to me and asked if I might be able to paint it for them to hang in their home and I was more than happy to oblige.  After conferring with them on several occasions, we had decided on several things.  One, that the picture should be divided into three canvases and each canvas should be fairly sizable so that when placed next to one another, it would create the illusion of a larger overall painting.  Two, that the color of the top of the rail should be changed so that there's not so much blue.  After a few more discussions, I decided to go ahead with a few preliminary sketches.  The final sketch being this:

pelican triptych sketch - watercolor on watercolor paper

Upon seeing the finished sketch, they still felt that something was missing.  Something needed to be drastically changed in order for this work to become a main focal point on the wall they decided to hang it on.  Plus, a predominantly blue color scheme sort of clashed with the colors they chose to paint their walls. They asked if I could redo the sketch in a sunset setting.  Again, I was happy to oblige and what follows is a sketch I used as my basis for the final product:

sunset pelican triptych sketch - water color on watercolor paper

This obviously changed the dynamics of the color scheme drastically and made it a bit more challenging to create the right kind of shadow and highlights that might seem appropriate for an early evening setting when all I had to go by was a photo take in the middle of the day.  My friends were still pleased with the final result and so was I.  It was by far one of the more difficult pieces I've ever had to do because keeping the same consistency and color flowing smoothly between three separate canvases without obvious breaks in the transition is considerably more difficult than it looks.  This is what I gave to them as the finished product (forgive the disproportioned photos - I didn't have a good camera or stand at the time these were completed - but you get the idea):

pelican triptych - acrylic on canvas

Again the quality of this series of photos very badly compressed into one image falls well short of the actual pairings themselves.  This kind of mistake will be remedied in the future though because I have since been able to purchase a proper camera with accompanying tripod.  :)

Anyhow...this is what I do.