Friday, June 18, 2010

Sacramento Retiree Photographs Public Murals

Lezlie Sterling/lsterling@sacbee.com

I came across this article in the Sacramento Bee about a local retired man who takes regular walks around the city photographing every public, private, amateur and professional mural, he can find. He meanders around, with no destination, documenting some great art.

photo by Russ Andris

You can see Russ Andris' photos here. Enjoy!

Tuesday, June 08, 2010

My Birthday Present

Since I started creating more of presence online for my art business (murals, web design, illustrations, etc), I have found so many wonderful artists! It's awe-inspiring and intimidated at the same time, you know what I mean.

One of the artists I really liked is Stephanie Fizer, http://stephaniefizer.com. I think her style is adorable, and I'm in love with her color palettes. So, I sent my husband a link to her Etsy shop and told him that's what I wanted, if he was so inclined to buy me a present :)




And, he did! These are little girls as characters from Alice in Wonderland. Maybe for Christmas I'll ask for the Wizard of Oz illustrations...

Tuesday, June 01, 2010

Transported to the Tuscan Countryside

The weather's a little crazy with so much rain in May, but I'm not going to complain because I know how hot the summers get here. I'm not in a hurry for that! Unfortunately, it did effect my painting schedule. I finally finished this week.

The first final version

The final step was painting the crumbling wall with exposed brick. I also added long cracks with rocks broken out. In addition, the client requested a embossment around the door. He felt it need a little more depth.

The left side of the exposed brick wall

After sitting with it for a day or two, the clients decided they wanted to take out and rearrange some elements.

The first version of the left side

Even though I painted it exactly like my sketch, they decided they wanted a few changes. This totally fine because it's their wall and they are the ones who are going to be living with it. 

The second final version. The client wanted to remove the large brick area on the bottom left. They felt it distracted from the scene in the arch.  They also requested I add a small brick area on the bottom right to incorporate some real exposed bricks and removed the circular chips in the wall.

So it is clear to perspective clients and to avoid any problems, it is written in my contract that any major changes made to the painting after the sketch approval will be an extra charge. I've never had a problem with a client about it, but better safe than sorry.

The final mural

In the end, you want the client to be happy with their artwork while maintaining the integrity of your work.