Log Cabin Oil Painting

11 x 14 oil on linen

This house was a recent commissioned piece from Etsy.

Changes

Most commissioned painting are never as straightforward as they seem initially. I was aware of this one going into it. Sometimes I find out later--like the one I just finished. "Can I make the brick lighter? She is covering it with concrete." That's another story, though. I am limited by the image in front of me and sometimes that image is horrible. It's always easier to do a good job if you can see the subject with your own eyes. If you can't do it from life you can at least do a sketch and use your own reference photos. There is something about sketching from life that imprints the image into your mind.

Here are the two photos I had to work with for this piece. One seems to be a photos of a snapshot with flash glare and the other one is a digital image of what the awing looks like now. I wanted to ask why they couldn't just take a picture of the house with its teal awning but maybe it burned up and this is a gift to remember it by. Who knows. I thought it was worth a try and it turned out so well I decided to use it on a flyer. I'm hoping it doesn't make people think I can routinely create something from nothing. This one was a fluke, I'm sure.

House Painting with People.

16" x 20" oil on linen

This is a house in Connecticut that I painted for a couple who won the bid in a grand prize to benefit the Autism Society of Connecticut. I donate a few paintings a year to worthy causes and this is one. The couple sent me three pictures, one of her with the boys, one of him with the boys and another of the house. Adding the people in front of the house is a nice way to personalize a house portrait.

Philadelphia Brownstone Commission

11x14 oil on canvas

One more Christmas house painting: a Philadelphia brownstone with the owner's Vespa parked in front. I think the scooter adds charm to this painting. It's the first scooter I've ever painted, although I have painted a couple motorcycles. This is another piece where I changed the seasons because the original photo showed some dying flowers and I spruced up the flower boxes and planters a bit.

Remodeled Farmhouse in New York

18 x 24 Oil on Canvas

This was another Christmas commission and the client specifically asked for the chicken coop to remain in the front. Maybe there's some sentimental attachment to it. I also changed the season on this piece. The leaves were already gone and they were doing some construction on the house so I added fall color and imaginary landscaping.

Fall Painting from Photos

18 x 24 oil on canvas

This is the Schrade homestead in New York. They like their chicken coop and the pictures they gave me showed bare trees. I was asked to paint the scene as if it were fall and to add some shrubs because the home was under construction when they took their pictures.

Better Photos Equal Better Results

I'm pleased with this painting. The quality of the photos has a direct bearing on how a painting turns out, so when I receive excellent reference photos it's easier to create a beautiful piece. This house had a wonderful color scheme and some really nice landscaping. The owner also waited for a sunny day and took his photos when the light was at a good angle. A little planning goes a long way@

11" x 14" oil on canvas

Tis the Season to Paint Houses

People love their pets. And I get that. Because I love mine too. This client wanted three of their dogs positioned near the home. Two fluffy ones on a bench on the porch and a beagle in the yard. I got the impression these dogs were owned sometime in the past and were being included as accessories, but beloved ones. Why did I think that? The quality of the photos of the pets was the main reason. They looked like old faded photographs from an album. Almost like a cell phone picture of a picture. You get the picture--not the best of quality. When I agree to include pets in house paintings I remind the client that I am only able to 'suggest' the animal due to size limitations. I think I'm spending too much time defending the two blobs of fluff I included in this painting. :)

11" x 14" oil on canvas

Kate's Family Painting - A Surprise Gift for Her Husband!

Kate, who live in New York, recently commissioned a painting of her house as a Christmas gift for her husband after seeing one I had painted for her friend in May. She wanted her family included too, so this is what I came up with. At 24" x 30", it's one of the larger house paintings I've done but Kate says they have plenty of wall space in their new home.

Kate's House

A Gift for Dad on Father's Day-- A House Painting

This house painting was commissioned as a surprise gift for Father's Day. The client sent me several photos of her house and a few pictures of her and the family.

The key to putting people into a house painting is to keep them "in the background". That doesn't mean you have to put them behind the house; you just need to keep the values fairly close and don't add much detail. I blocked in the shapes in raw umber, then allowed it to dry and colored in the limbs and clothing loosely with paint very similar in value.

The painting is about the house and if we don't lose sight of that it's a better painting. Resist the temptation to put in features, bows, shoes etc. The house is the subject and the family is secondary.

16" x 20"

Alexa's House

A Last Minute Gift for One of Our Kids

I paint so many commissions in November and December that I don't have time to paint much of anything else. Lots of dogs, and cats and, of course, houses. Many people have this idealized picture of their house in their head and when they move they want to have something to help them remember the good times. Or adult children will often commission a painting of their parent's cottage or home.

Creating all these paintings gave me an idea for a gift for one of our kids, who had purchased a house in 2013. I decided to make it a little more personal and put their children into the painting as well. The painting turned out nice but it was really hard to find the time to squeeze this project in when there are so many other things to do to get ready for Christmas. Not to mention the ten other paintings that had to be done before I could start this one. Everything worked out and I had two free evenings to work on the painting while my husband ended up doing all the gift wrapping this year. He has already informed me it's not a job he wants to repeat next year.

18"x 24"

Lee & Erin's House

Philadelphia Brownstone Painting

This painting was a commission and will be given to the woman's sister, who just purchased the brownstone. I had painted the brick building to the left very symmetrically and it did not look good. So I wiped it out and left some of the bricks out.

When you do a painting you can leave out all kinds of wires and poles and even garbage cans. That's a little more difficult when you have a photograph.

11"x 14"

Is it the Twelve Days of Christmas or the Twelve Paintings of Christmas?

When I returned from the workshop last week I had three house paintings, a lake painting and two dog paintings to finish before Christmas. I knew this would happen and I was prepared for it, but it is still never easy to paint commissioned work fast. You want that luxury of time, but I am the kind of person who likes challenges. Luckily they were all small pieces, 9"x 12"and 11"x 14", or it never would have happened. They are done now, proofs approved and sitting around waiting until they are dry enough to mail. I can breathe a sigh of relief and begin to focus on our family's Christmas plans.

This house is in Buffalo. She wanted the farm behind it to show and requested that I remove the snowblower in front of the driveway. Buffalo had received nine feet of snow when this picture was taken, and the painting I did actually tells a story and is much more interesting than a typical straight on view a home.

Photo

After the Blizzard

11"x 14"

Commissioned House Painting

This is Rebecca's house, painted from a series of photos she sent me. It is 12" x 16", oil on linen.

Lake House, 11" x 14" oil on canvas

Vacation homes always hold good memories so they are good subjects to paint. This is a modern lakefront cottage and the client specifically asked for a sliver of lake to show in front- even though it would not show in reality because the house is too far away in the photo provided. She also asked if I could paint the house olive green because her parents were in the process of doing just that. I added some flowers pots with brilliant blooms at the base of the stairs too. Good painting is all about pushing the boundaries of reality I guess.

Another Christmas Quickie!

Sometimes you get a picture of a house that is perfect in every way except the angle. I used tow different picture to completes this painting for Kaitlin, who will gift it to her parents for Christmas. The straightforward angle of the first picture showed the bushes in bloom and was lovely. In order to get a little more dimension to the painting she went to Google Maps and grabbed a pretty good picture of what the house looked like from an angle. The resolution of those photos has really improved over the years.

What I really like about doing these house paintings is that I am learning how to advance the important stuff and delete the extraneous data. There was a time when I would have painted in the background houses- now I know it's better just to suggest them and keep the focus on the house.

Kaitlin's House

11" x 14"

oil on canvas

Kenda's House

A commissioned painting of a really cute brick house that has many interesting architectural details that aren't readily apparent in the photograph of the whole house. I had to use four other detail shots and raise the point of view a bit to get everything in that the client wanted to include. (Also deleted a lot of things she DIDN'T want like neighbor's houses, eaves troughs etc.)

9" x 12" oil on canvas 

The Dog is Larger than Life...

The dog may be larger than life, but so is his personality, according to the woman who commissioned this house painting. She is giving the painting to people who LOVE the dog, so I guess that's all right. This is a small 11" x 14" piece and it was difficult to get enough detail into the dog to be recognizable but you can tell it's a French Bulldog.
House paintings are usually fun to do. The owners are thrilled to have something hanging on their wall that tells the world how much they love their home. And it's always a challenge to turn a bland photo into a colorful oil painting. It requires imagination and invention because the details are just not readily apparent in the photo. Thankfully, most houses are constructed the same way and I've painted a lot of them so I know where to fill in the blanks.

This Dog Owns The Lawn

11 x 14

Home Sweet Home

I like front porches. I have a front porch but it's not "that" kind of porch. My front porch is covered in steel and vinyl and it is not 'inviting'. I do have a sun porch that is comfortable and invites visitors to sit and stay for awhile. But the old-fashioned porch of the 1940s and 50s is a rarity. My husband;s grandmother had one. Her house was a classic 'bungalow' style and faced the main road in town. The traffic could be annoying at night when you were trying to sleep but on a lazy summer afternoon it was a comfortable place to sit and watch the world go by. Neighbors out for a stroll or walking their dogs; all stopped to say a few words and remark on the weather. There were no strangers in this era.

When did we begin to enclose those porches with screens? Eventually the porches shrank until they were little more than a stoop with no room for a chair. Living rooms became larger to accommodate the ever-increasing size of new forms of entertainment like television. While our horizons became broader and began to include the world more and more, our local connections disappeared. My husband's grandmother knew the names of everyone on her street and probably two or three streets down. She knew who was getting married, who was expecting a child, what grade the kids were in and she never met a stranger. I know a few of the residents in my neighborhood, but most are strangers and we have lived here for 11 years.

I think the front porch has become a symbol for a kinder, gentler time. I filled this one with warm light to infuse it with a romantic and nostalgic feeling. I added a cat because I love cats.

Even a Modern Home Makes a Great Subject for a Painting

Most of the commissioned house paintings I do are of older homes, ones that exhibit a lot of "character". While it's true that older homes are sometimes more picturesque and have a lot of interesting angles, a newer home can be a beautiful subject for a painting as well. The lighting is important and if the reference pictures are taken in nice light the entire effect can be spell-binding. The client took their photos of this house close to sunset and the violets and reds in the sky bathes the mostly white brick in an appealing peach colored tone. Their landscaping is wonderful too and adds to the overall beauty of this home. The reference pictures showed a house with a dead lawn and one thing a painter can do is alter reality. The lush green lawn is what we want to see when there isn't a drought, so I painted it in.

11" x 14"

oil on canvas