Capturing Memories

Delivery day to my favorite framer - Billy Dunivan of Against the Wall - had me smiling. :-) It was a super windy west Texas day so we had to take a photo fast before the painting blew to the next county!

This recent commission was such a fun challenge! In some ways, it was a home portrait— but in other ways it wasn’t. It was much more. :-)

My sweet client grew up in the quaint Texas town of Fredericksburg (not too far from San Antonio) and was married in the Nimitz Museum there. She and her husband wanted a large (4’x5’) acrylic painting that incorporated several of buildings that were important to them from the Fredericksburg main street, with the Nimitz as the focal point.

Since they’d recently had their master bedroom professionally redesigned/redecorated, the colors needed to coordinate with the fresh new space.

I’d call this a limited palette painting in that I was bound to the color palette of my clients space where the painting will hang. Daniel Smith acrylics set the foundation, with a few accents from other brands.

I’d spoken at a women’s retreat in Fredericksburg several years ago, so I pulled out a few of my own reference photos plus several my client provided and I went to work.

I created sketches and a thumbnail (8”x10”) painting to be sure we were on the same page with the overall design and the colors.

The large board the painting would live on had to be built, framed out, then primed.

I had to move a cabinet out of my studio and cover a wall with plastic to have space to work on this big commission. The bench the painting rests on was built by my late father-in-law, sweet Joe. I’m a pretty sloppy painter so I made quite a mess on the floor. (I’m planning to repaint the floor soon.)

The four featured buildings are not side by side on the street in Fredericksburg, so this was somewhat of a compilation painting. Once the general layout was approved, I made the initial sketch using chalk on the primed surface.

My style is not photo representational, but more impressionistic to communicate ideas without telling the whole story. I love painting loose!

It took several weeks (make that months) to finish it up, but I was so happy with the final result and, best of all, my client loved it!

I liked the little pops of extra color my client requested- especially the happy little flowers - my favorite - suggested in the foreground.

Helping people tell their story by capturing their life memories through painting with watercolor, acrylic, or mixed media is so much fun to me. Let me know if you need to capture a memory of a special place as well. :-)