"I'll Take You To Italy"- a wonderful love story painted!!!

 

18"x24" oil on cradled birch panel

Commissioned work

When I get the opportunity to work on commissioned pieces for my collectors, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. I truly appreciate my 'job'. It dawned on me recently that almost all of my commissions (actually perhaps every single one) is a love story of some type or another.  Each story has been as sweet, and beautiful as the next.  

This couple met at a charity auction, and both were bidding on a trip to Italy.  Neither of them won the bid. The woman was disappointed, but the man (who was obviously smitten) offered, "I'll take you to Italy"!  A few years later, this is where they stayed- and now, I get to paint it for them! 

Travel memories are some of our strongest and fondest memories - especially when romance is involved! It's especially wonderful to commemorate and celebrate these wonderful times in our lives.  It's another way of "making your love visible in the world"...an outward sign of inner joy.  

Make sure you don't miss my next post! I'll tell you why choosing a good name for your painting is as important as naming your child!  

A New Season (commissioned work) - sold

8"x6" oil on Belgian linen mounted on museum quality board

"If I had a single flower for every time I think about you, I could walk forever in my garden!"
- Claudia Ghandi

One of my collectors posts the most wonderful quotes on Facebook... this is one she listed that I had not heard before & thought was profoundly beautiful. Thanks Jamie, for sharing these wonderful thoughts! It goes so well with the story I'm about to share!

I had promised at some point I would share the 'big reveal' of a recent commission. This was a very special occasion and meant a lot to me to be able to fulfill this. A dear friend of ours was retiring from the Navy after many years in the Navy's submarine force. He wanted to commission a painting as a gift to his wife (as I well know, when the service member serves, the whole family serves). She is a master gardener and for the longest time the running joke was, "I want to live some where long enough to grow asparagus." (as apparently it takes at least 3 years to get a decent crop of it). As submarine service members, we are usually transferred at the 2 or 3 year point to the next duty station. So....in this painting, he requested a still-life with these 3 elements - red roses for love, an anchor symbolizing the Navy, and of course asparagus- symbolizing the stability from moving they hope to now have! Ohhhh- this would be a challenge to put these three together, but once I had sketched out several ideas, I could easily see what composition would work best. I am so excited to share this picture and story with you...and am honored to be a part of such a wonderful gift for a couple that is very special to our family! "Fair winds and following seas!", and all our best wishes in this 'new season' in their lives!

Today's painting "A New Season", and is an 8"x6" oil on oil-primed linen mounted on museum quality board. It is a commissioned work for dear family friends we are proud to have served with in the US Navy!


Hope you get a chance to get outside and smell the flowers today! ****Tomorrow I hope to show you what I pulled in from my garden! ....woohoo, what a bounteous harvest!! Yeah, gotta love summer!

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