What I Drew Last Summer
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.
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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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.