Commissions

This spring a friend of mine asked me to create a piece for her friends who were getting married. After talking about the image layout and looking at lots of photos, this is the print I made for Hannah and Kevin (and their very large dogs!!)

I haven't met Hannah and Kevin. I heard they like their picture and I hope they really do!

Doing commissions is hard because you often don't really know the person who asked you to create the art, or you don't  know the recipient, or you don't know the setting that was requested, or whatever, but it's IMPORTANT that you get it all just right anyway.

So I ask a lot of questions and hopefully get some reference photos. And there's always Google Images when you  are feeling lost. When I have a general idea for the image I usually run it past the client verbally or in an email and make sure I'm on the right track. If that goes well I do a drawing and show the client. Everyone who has asked me to make something for them has already been really familiar with my work. So I don't worry too much about if they will be able to envision what the final piece will look like based on the drawing. It will look like one of my linocuts!

I thought I'd share some of the other commissions I've done in the last few years.

This teepee is near Hayden, Colorado and was commissioned as a birthday present for the owner of the teepee by his very sweet girlfriend. I asked her if she minded if I made the print into an edition and had it available for sale for other people too. She thought that was fine, so I made it to go with a series of Colorado images that I sell locally as originals or cards.

This is a picture of my friend, Liz and her beloved dog, Smokey who passed away. She asked me to make a piece where they are sitting under a tree at sunset. I made this one a little more stylized but hopefully it still shows the love between the two of them.

This one was very hard. A coworker asked me to make something for the parents of a baby who passed away. She was a twin and her sister is living. My coworker wanted to give something personal that would commemorate Allie Mae. I wanted it to be small so they could tuck it away and only look at it sometimes if they wanted to. And I didn't want to try and do the baby's likeness because it would have been too sad and I don't think my artistic talents are up to it. So here is the symbolic piece I did. I not only feel  sympathy for the baby's parents, but I also have a lot of respect for people who make sympathy cards.

This one is a much happier story. A lady I've emailed quite a bit but never met in person collects my artwork. She had a fall and winter linocut of mine and wanted to get spring and summer images as well. She picked my Crows print as the summer picture and asked me if I had any spring pictures. And I have some that would maybe pass as spring, but I asked if she would wait while I made her a new piece that would go with the Crows. In this case, she didn't want to hear anything about the new image. She wanted me to surprise her. Like the Teepee, I asked if she would mind if I made it an edition and other people could buy a print also. 

So here is a spring picture and it's especially relevant this year with all of the rain. There are Sandhill Cranes because they fly through our area every spring and fall. These cranes are towing rain clouds. The river is high and there are glacier lilies blooming. 

Happy spring to all of you!