What I Drew Last Summer

What I drew last summer 7-1-13

What I Drew Last Summer

8″ x 8″ (20 x 20 cm) – oil on gessobord – commission

This was one of those very rare paintings that practically painted itself. It happens sometimes, not too often, and I wonder what is the reason for this. This is the second painting that did this: I am working on it… mixing and painting…, and suddenly it informs me – I think I am done, thanks! 🙂

I absolutely love my patron for whom this is painted. C.B. contacted me through my online gallery and basically said some variation of the following: I like your style, why won’t you paint something you like and I will buy it. I nearly fainted – the best art patron in the world!

Painting this was smooth and logical and presented very few problems. I did have a little bit of a fuss with strawberries – I did not nail the color right away, and the texture was a challenge. It was an interesting problem to paint graphite and pen drawing in oil. I had fun with that.

The only difficulty I had was coming up with a title. Polling family members yielded several possibles, none of which had a WOW factor. I did a crowd-sourcing thing on Facebook (again), and what a great idea it was – I got a dozen excellent titles. Combining ideas from 3 or 4 different people I came up with this – What I Drew Last Summer.

And here’s the sketch that got painted in this composition. I drew this in cafe Metropolis while drinking tea and sketching with my friend Don Colley.

Metropolis Stripes 3-4-13

6 Comments

  1. nicsearth July 2, 2013

    For fear of sounding repetitive-wow, Alex, I swear each painting blows me away just a little bit more. This is incredible. I’ve never seen such amazing photorealism and to include a drawing of yours in the composition was a stroke of genius!

    • Alex Zonis July 3, 2013

      Thank you so much, Nic! I especially appreciate a kind word on including the drawing. It was a gamble, not every opinion I heard was positive.

  2. Linda Spiese July 2, 2013

    I love this painting. I have that same bowl and, in fact, bought one of Jean Pierre Walter’s small painting of the bowl and fruit. It’s very nice I follow his work and yours. I bought Clarity from you This is especially nice, and I like it very much.

    • Alex Zonis July 3, 2013

      Isn’t it funny how JP Walter and I both painted rice patterned bowls at the same time! Thank you for following my work, Linda!

  3. Carol King July 10, 2013

    Hi Alex, this painting is terrific! And I really do like the fact that you put one of your sketches into the painting. I wondered how it would be to paint one of your own drawings, but you answered that.

    Lucky you to have an art patron! Good for you. Great work, very impressive.

    • Alex Zonis July 14, 2013

      Thank you, Carol! This is the setup C.B. chose. I came up with about half a dozen for him to look at and he liked this one best. I liked this one second best, may still paint my first choice.

Comments are Disabled