Hot, hot baby!

Summer is here.  Last weekend it was HOT, well Alaska hot.  The sun was big and bright and Alaskans were in a great mood.  The tourist are here enjoying our world.  Festivals and fairs are popping up every weekend.

What does the paragraph above mean to artists?  Get your buns in GEAR!  This is the season where your bank account gets in the black and you get inspired with new ideas.  With so many new eyes seeing your work, there are many opportunities to listen to customer feedback.  This helps the old grey cells spark to life with new ideas.

The above painting is 12" x 12" on a wood frame.  The background is done with a paper collage.  Inside the frame is a MDF board placed on mat board.  When all that is done I place Greve and Celli with oil paint.  This allows an affordable and suitcase friendly piece of art.  I hope to sell the pieces for $125.  Hope being a key phrase.

Come by the Girdwood Forest Fair July 6-8th and see all three designs plus two new original canvas paintings.  I will be working the Girdwood Center for Visual Arts booth on Friday afternoon.  It is an art, food and music filled weekend. 

Thanks for listening and checking out my new work.  If you'll excuse me my buns clearly need to get in gear!

Sharing a Brain

This is a painting I just completed for a family.  This is the third Greve they have bought, creating one for each of their kid's rooms.  I am quite honored really.  I love the idea of their boys drifting off to sleep gazing at Signore Greve and Celli enjoying an adventure.

Getting into someone else's head to create a painting can be challenging.  Some clients are easy like the above family.  I once had a woman who asked me to paint her a tiger....PERIOD.  No color requirement, positions, size, sketches, nothing.  Just, " Gina, will you paint me a tiger?"

This is the painting I delivered.  Tigers love water which is something few people think about.  I wanted it to be a peaceful painting since it was going in her bedroom.  The client was very flowy, airy and creative so I like the water adding that softness.  Here is the incredible part.

I met her at her home to deliver the painting.  She had no idea what it might look like.  As she looked at it she gasped and her eyes got wide.  She grabbed my hand and lend me to the wall that the painting would hang.  The colors were EXACTLY like the colors in her comforter.  The painting fit the rooms style perfectly.  She teared up thanking me and some cosmic force.  I was a bit blown away myself.

Many artist won't take on the challenges of commissions.  Getting someone else's brain isnt'easy,it's true, but the payoff when it all comes together is awesome!