Celebrating a special event with art.

What you are looking at is a work in progress. it has a first refusal request on it so it may never be open for sale

As you can see there is a lot of work on this already and a lot more to go before it is properly finished. What on earth has all this to do with commissioning art for special occasions, I hear you ask. Well glass is time consuming and tough on my back, but no where near as time consuming as an oil painting. Painting in oil is about the process and believe me over the last five years I have tried time and time again to find short cuts and they just do not work. The result is always better if I follow a traditional process, but that takes time. Recently I have received two requests for oil painting commissions. Both wanted their piece ready in a very short space of time. One I have been able to accept as it is a straight forward piece and I am doing my best to get it done asap. However every time I apply paint there is a three day drying process (at least) and to get the effects I normally produce there are many applications of paint. I cannot stress enough that producing an oil painting takes longer the more detail and finish you are looking for. A plein air painting, wet on wet can be done in one sitting and give wonderful, painterly finishes, but it will not be my normal style at all. So the message is, if you want to commission a piece, as a gift, think about it in advance, give me 6 months notice and we will have no problems. Even for Glass, as my back needs rest when doing the glass.

One last thing, a bit of an appeal really; one of the requests for a painting was from a young man, just starting out in music and releasing his first album, he wanted a wonderfully creative and complex piece that I would have loved to do for him but the time scale was impossible. However, time was not the only problem, I already work voluntarily 2 days a week for 'The Well' a community caffe and food project in West Auckland, I do still need to supplement my income with earnings and working for nothing on artwork (that will take upwards of sixty hours, is not really feasible. But I would have loved to have done this work for him. So I am reaching out to any creative brains out there. How can I generate money in a charitable way to put to one side for projects such as this. So that next time I can say yes, if the time scale is possible. Maybe I just want too much, I don't know? Please get in touch with any ideas you might have about how I could do this in a charitable, transparent way. I will be posting again very soon as paintings are coming off the easel now.