By Michael Orlando

Deciding to practice the art of oil painting was a great one, but now you’re faced with what you need to buy in order to get started. Oil painting materials can be very expensive and a vast majority of materials to choose from. This materials list will carry you long into your early years of painting and is budget conscious.

Choosing a good easel can be difficult. But the most important characteristic is that it is STURDY! When I got started oil painting, I did not have the money to buy the kind of easel I needed. So I went to the local home fix it store and bought an 8 by 4 sheet of ¾ inch plywood for about $15.00. I put it up against a wall in my basement and put some support screws at the top of the board and into the ceiling joist and instant easel! The reason why it works so perfectly is that it’s big, so you can put up any size canvas, and it does not get much sturdier than that!

You also never had to adjust anything, because you put the canvas where you want it. This brings me to the next important note though. I staple gun my canvas to the easel flat and stretch them after the painting is done. That’s another reason why the sheet of plywood worked so well. I have used it for years and years and painted many paintings on it, so I have gotten my $15.00 out of it.

But I do also have a portable easel that I spent about $180.00 on. I use that for when I paint upstairs or outside etc. The next things are white bristle brushes (get a variety of them) some sable brushes (get a variety). I would suggest getting REAL animal hair brushes, no synthetics. The real animal hair brushes are the best, they handle the pigments better, and it’s more natural. I had a bunch of synthetic brushes early on and I got rid of all of them, garbage in my opinion. One of the most valuable things I have near my brushes is REAL cotton Qtips. They are way better than some of my good brushes. You can create very subtle strokes with those and soften edges. Get a box of 500. Once you start using them, you will go through them fast! But get some wire cutters and cut them in half. It’s tedious, but trust me, if you don’t do it, you will waste more of them and start getting paint all over the place. You will be glad you did this, and don’t forget some kind of jar or tin to put them in.

This may be preference, but I would suggest getting disposable palettes. They are pads of wax coated paper. When you use one up, tear it off and your ready to go. I also suggest getting two of them. One is for putting your colors down, and the other one is used for mixing only. Trust me, your going save a lot of paint and disposable palettes this way.

There are a variety of oils you can mix with your pigments and you should experiment, but start with COLD PRESSED Linseed oil. In brief, it’s extracted from trees differently and is a great general purpose oil. I use it all the time and that’s all I use. You will need a palette knife to mix the oils and resins into your pigments. An alkyd resin will be needed in order to speed up the drying times of some pigments. There are a variety of brands but just ask for one that is for general purpose until you know which ones you want.

Paint thinner or mineral spirits are essential, but be sure to get a type that is not too smelly or strong; it’s not good to breathe it. You will also need a brush washer to put the paint thinner in and wash your brushes. Get some rags for messes and cleanups.

There is a large selection of pigments to choose from, but the first consideration is making sure you buy pure pigments/colors. Brick red is not a real pigment. Here’s a list of the pigments you need to get started and will carry you well into your early years of painting. Titanium white, raw umber, burnt umber, raw sienna, burnt sienna, ivory black, alizarin crimson, cadmium red, cadmium yellow, cadmium green cadmium orange, chromium oxide green, cobalt blue, viridian, dioxazine violet, French ultramarine blue, paynes grey, charcoal grey, yellow ochre, sap green, pliers to untwist stuck paint caps, and toilet paper to wipe your palette knife, and those little artist cups with caps so you can put your linseed oil and alkyd resin in.

If you’re using your own prepared canvas, you will also need blue masking tape and a square so you can draw out the size of the painting you’re making and mark it with the tape. Get a color wheel. They are a huge help until you start to know what certain mixes will do etc. It’s important to have a good artist soap to wash your hands because you never want to get any artist materials near your mouth and eyes etc.

You will also need some plain ivory bar soap for washing your brushes. An important item is a metal trash can that can be made air tight. This is where you will put all your oil painting trash! Curing resins, oils, pigments and thinners are all very flammable and given the right conditions, they can spontaneously combust! But in a metal garbage can that’s air tight, you have nothing to worry about.

Lastly is the canvas. You can get canvas boards, stretched canvas etc. The canvas boards are good to practice on, but I also suggest preparing your own canvas and buying it unprimed. I have another article out about this and I will have a “how to” video about it on ustream. But you can also buy the pre-stretched canvas. You can just start painting on them, but they are way overpriced.

This list should get you oil painting immediately and carry you well into your early years of painting.

Michael Orlando is a veteran motion picture visual effects artist, and most recently has been concentrating on his oil painting career and building his art business. His original fine art oil painting can be seen at http://www.etsy.com/shop/orlandoart.

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Here is a great little video from artist Andrew Whyte for all you beginner oil painters out there.  In this video Andrew talks about the various tools and supplies that he uses and recommends for beginners.  A big thanks to Andrew for making this video available.  To learn more about Andrew and to see his artwork, click here to visit his website.

Learning how to become a good oil painter is a difficult undertaking. In fact, it is more than likely one of the most difficult painting mediums to master. Things like color mixing & theory, perspective, techniques and materials can really intimidate a beginner artist.

So how do you get the most out of your oil painting and become a more accomplished artist?

You must make it a point to learn the fundamentals of oil painting, practice often and have an enormous amount of patience.

You must start with the fundamentals of oil painting first. You cannot expect to produce Rembrandt quality paintings in the beginning. In fact, the first paintings you produce will probably be a lot worse than you may have anticipated. Frustration will more than likely come into the picture (pun intended). They key is to learn from your mistakes and do not let them defeat you.

So what are some of the fundamentals of oil painting? What information should you study and learn first?

Below are some topics of interest that you should definitely study further when you have time:

LEARN HOW TO DRAW

You will be amazed at how much learning how to draw will help improve your oil paintings. In fact, years ago art students were not even permitted to pick up an oil painting brush until they learned the fundamentals of drawing. My advice would be to find a few good books on drawing fundamentals and start there. Drawing is an art form all by itself and you should not be expected to master drawing as an art form, unless you want to of course.

Here is an excellent book to help you learn drawing fundamentals:

“The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: A Course in Enhancing Creativity and Artistic Confidence” by Betty Edwards

COLOR THEORY

You MUST learn about color theory if you plan on producing quality works of art. If you don’t understand how colors work, then you might as well hang up your brushes now. There is much to learn about colors like temperature, hue and intensity and how colors interact with one another. This is a very important aspect of oil painting and must not be overlooked.

Here is an excellent book on color theory:

“Exploring Color: How to Use and Control Color in Your Painting” by Nita Leland

PERSPECTIVE

Learning about perspective will teach you how to translate a 3-dimensional world onto a 2-dimensional canvas or other support. Learning perspective is a necessary ingredient toward producing convincing oil paintings.

Here is an excellent book on perspective:

“The Art of Perspective: The Ultimate Guide for Artists in Every Medium” by Phil Metzger

MATERIALS

Materials to an oil painter are like what a guitar is to a guitarist. A guitarist cannot play without his instrument nor can he play without understanding how his instrument works. Your painting materials are your instruments. They are what enable you to express yourself, so learning more about them is pretty good idea. Get to know the different kinds of brushes and what they do. Know your paints. Not all colors behave the same. Some are more transparent or opaque than others. Know your supports and the difference between them. The list goes on.

Here is an excellent book for learning more about oil painting materials:

“The Oil Painting Book: Materials and Techniques for Today’s Artist” by Bill Creevy

TECHNIQUES

There are a myriad of oil painting techniques that you can utilize to create your paintings. So much so, that it is beyond the scope of this article. Techniques like wet on wet, glazing, alla prima, knife painting, etc. should all be explored. Working with various techniques will help you develop your own unique style.

Here is a great book on oil painting techniques:

“The Encyclopedia of Oil Painting Techniques: A Unique Step-by-Step Visual Directory of All the Key Oil-Painting Techniques, Plus an Inspirational Gallery Showing How They Can Be Put into Practice” by Jeremy Galton

LEARN FROM THE MASTERS

Masters like Claude Monet, Vincent Van Gogh, Rembrandt van Rijn , Johannes Vermeer and many more, were all able to successfully translate our 3-dimensional world onto a 2-dimensional surface in such a way that it grabs the viewers attention and keeps it there. Their paintings engage the viewer and bring them back time and time again to look some more. Why? What is it that these paintings have that make them so popular? Well, one way to find out is to study them. If at all possible, make it a point to visit a museum as often as possible and study the works of the masters. Find paintings that grab your attention and draw you in. Then, when you have time, try to find books and other resources on those artists so that you can learn more about them and their techniques. When you are ready, pick a painting that you are quite fond of and try to reproduce it.

Here is a great book on learning from the masters:

“How to Paint Like the Old Masters ” by Joseph Sheppard

About Mike

Nationally recognized, award winning artist Mike Callahan is a fourth generation Nevada native who counts himself privileged to grow up in what he believes to be one of the most beautiful places on earth, the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains near Reno, Nevada where he still lives today. While he has been painting since childhood, he has only been painting in earnest for about the last 5 or 6 years.

Says Mike, “The topography of this area is simply phenomenal; one can go from the high desert to mountainous alpine settings in less than an hour. It is this beautiful and varied landscape that ends up being the subject for a vast majority of my paintings.”

However, if you look through the paintings on Mike’s website, you will quickly see that the Sierra landscape isn’t the only subject Mike typically paints. He also enjoys painting Western themes as well as figurative and portraits.

As you look at Mike’s work, you will notice a great color harmony throughout. While the colors in his paintings run the full spectrum of color seen in nature, harmony is maintained by Mike limiting himself to only three colors plus white on his palette. Instead of referring to this as a limited palette, Mike thinks of it as an unlimited palette as he has not found any color he desires to use that he can’t create from those primary colors.

Mike’s work has been featured in numerous solo, group, and juried shows including the 54th Juried Exhibition at the Haggin Museum in Stockton, California, the second 100 in PaintAmerica’s 2008 Paint the Parks competition, and in May of 2008, Mike received national honors at the Oil Painters of America’s National Juried Show of Traditional Oils winning a coveted Award of Excellence for his painting “Wild Mustangs.”

Mike’s work can currently be seen firsthand at the Artistic Viewpoints Gallery in Minden, Nevada and the Truckee River Gallery in Reno.

Please click here to visit Mike’s website to view more of his work.

“Secret Cove” – Step By Step Oil Painting Lesson By Mike Callahan

Above is a shot of the Secret Cove, Lake Tahoe, Nevada. I shot this photo early on Saturday, Mar. 10, 2007.

Below is my almost that I painted this scene on. The canvas measures 24″ x 38″. To begin with, I mixed up a burnt-orang-ish color and applied it in strokes to my canvas with my palette knife just to get going. Follow along and see the progress of the rest of this painting…

1.) After applying the paint with knife as shown in the initial shot, I wetted a paper towel with Turpenoid and spread it evenly over the whole canvas. At this point, I will wipe the paint down till it’s as thin as I want it.

2.) From there, I dip a small bristle brush (about a size 2 flat) in Turpenoid as well and use it to draw with. I initially divide my canvas into thirds both horizontally and verically which aids both my composition and drawing.

3.) I dove right in and painted my sky right on top of my wet underpaint. I was sure to practice my “fat over lean” principle by mixing plenty of medium ( I use M. Graham’s Alkyd/Walnut oil mix and thin it about 50% with Turpenoid) and mix it liberally into my sky colors (making them “fat” with oil). It slides right off my brush and sticks to the “lean” under-paint.

4.) I got a late start on this painting because I had to stretch the canvas and by then it was late in the day, so I painted in the far mountains keeping them light and very blu-ish to pull off the atmospheric perspective I’m after. I mix a fair amount of sky color with the greens and browns for the small bit of the middle mountain slope and then called it a day.

5.) The next morning, I got up at 4:30 AM and painted for a little over an hour before going to my day job. I paint in the foreground trees and since my sky is now pretty dry, I mix in some of the left-over sky color around the edges of the trees where bough meets sky.

6.) Tuesday morning’s progress continues with the painting of the bank and snow. The snow which is mostly in shadow is very blue, but somewhat purple-ish in color because it is the reflection of all the ambient light but not the direct early morning sunlight (except in a couple of spots). Since the ambient light is mostly from sky and water to put it in simple terms, then the snow in the shade will be very blu-ish.

7.) Wednesday’s hour plus is spent concentrating on te reflected water in the distance. This painting posed a particular challenge for me because I had to paint reflected water as it comes forward and turns into the clear see-through water that will make this scene unmistakeably Tahoe.

8.) Thursday brings more challenges. The reflective water becomes clear, but on the left, the clarity is also a bit in shadow and reflects the trees a bit as well. I concentrate a lot on value and color to get it right and as a result, as you can see, my progress is slowed considerably.

9.) Friday’s hour is slow going too. This water, with rocks above and below it is tricky to paint so I move slowly deliberating with myself over nearly every stroke.

10.) It’s now Saturday morning and I begin to paint the clear water as it is in direct sunlight. What you see here is about an hour’s progress too. Go to the next page to see how I continued for most of the rest of the day.

11.) More rocks and sand – as the water nears the viewer, the less it reflects the sky and since Tahoe is so clear, the more sand color one sees.

12.) As I continue, I have to bear in mind that most of the rocks I’m painting are under water and therefore have a darker value, however, as they break the water’s surface, but are still wet, they take on a different value than either the part under water or the totally dry rock surface.

13.) For this hour I paint in the wet and dry rocks in the shadows of the trees. Another factor to consider is that contrast increases the nearer an object, in general. This is a little tricky to be sure.

14.) I finally near completion by painting in the ripples that are in the shallow sand area as well as the rippled surface reflections…below is the final piece.

“Secret Cove”
24″ x 38″ Oil on Canvas
SOLD!

Artist Statement

“I paint the places I love to be. I paint the freshness of eternal nature, icy lucid streams, thunderous waterfalls, and soaring granite crests over silent lakes. I paint the descriptions of John Muir, the echoes of Ansel Adams, the American West of Albert Bierstadt and Thomas Moran. I paint luminosity filtering through the landscape, reaching to the foundation of a stream, bouncing off rocks, and illuminating the shadows.

Using oil and acrylic, painting realistically is merely my means to an end. I want the viewer to connect with the places I love to be. I hope the observer will want to walk right into my painting and maybe even drop a line in the water to catch a trout.

My published works include both “plein air” and studio paintings, which helps me translate the dynamic experience of the moment and communicate in a more personal way of what I am trying to say..”

- Donald Neff

Follow this link to learn more about Donald and to view more of his work.

Anatomy of a Commission

Oil Painting Demo

Although I don’t advertise the fact, I occasionally do commission work. I generally only accept work which is similar to what I normally paint, so if for some reason the commission agreement falls apart, I can sell the painting to another party.

In this instance, the commission came through one of my galleries, James Harold Gallery in Tahoe City, California. Commission terms were handled by the gallery, so I won’t go into that here. The collectors are a married couple from San Francisco, who had seen my work in the gallery. They liked my work of Lake Tahoe, but were avid Yosemite lovers (the husband is on the board of the Yosemite Fund) and wanted a fall scene of Yosemite Valley.

After sending various images back and forth in emails, plus a number of phone calls, we decided to do a composite of several scenes and colorations. The scene is fairly close to an actual place, but some of the colors and details were borrowed from elsewhere. One of the main concerns of the couple is that the painting complements, at least in color, another painting they have in the same room. The painting shown further below, I eventually learned is by Walter Bailey, a noted muralist and landscape painter of the early 1900’s and is somewhat of a tonalist quality. We also decided on a standard size of 30×40.

Below is a narrative of the development of the project. In some instances, I copied parts of the emails we traded as the process continued. Since the collectors initially worked with James Harold Gallery to arrange the commission, I did not actually met them in person until I hand delivered the painting. Although the collectors didn’t mind me using their names, I will use only her first name in the narrative.

I first did a small color study of the final scene. I chose 9×12 as it is the same aspect ration as the final 30×40 painting. Below is part of an email I sent with a jpg of the first small study which gives some though process of the composition–

Study #1

Dear Mary,

I have attached a jpg of the 9×12 study… First, let me walk through the painting a bit…

For the background, I put a little blue in the sky as you requested, splashed some light across Sentinel Rock, etc. I left the right side of the cliff face fairly undefined as this helps lead your eye away from here and towards the center of interest. I might add a touch of clinging snow to this area, but not much.…

Concerning the large black oaks, which is the primary center of interest. I actually painted them several times, with back light, direct light, with different shades of yellow and orange, and finally what you see. This seemed to look the best against Sentinel Rock. I also added more red than the original photos. I am not sure if you had specific fall colors in mind, but this seemed to work the best, at least to me. I also opened up the oaks a little so the bluish glow from the valley floor comes through. This really sets off the colors of the leaves. The bright colors of the oaks needed to be balanced with the rest of the painting, so I made one of the small bushes in the far right river bank more red, and muted the reddish tree in the middle ground.…

I added a little more interest to the stream bank, staggering it rather than just the straight line in the photos. One thing I want to change in the final painting is to lower the stream bank slightly, and open up the middle ground. This will allow me to make the oaks just a bit bigger.

In response to my first study, the collectors emailed me back:

Dear Donald,

We like the study you did very much, but would like the colors adjusted to better match our other picture. We also thought that the study had a sense of winter, with the gray sky and the clouds and the touch of snow–and we would prefer a sunnier, fall perspective, before the first snow. We like the oaks, but were less attached to the smaller tree in the center which is now a mauve color, and probably not a good match with the palette of our other picture. We are happy to have you decide on the size of the pines–you have a much better eye than either of us! Let me know what you think.

They also sent me a photo of the other painting in the room, shown further below, which gave me a better idea of the color of the foliage they want.

Study #2

After seeing a jpg of the other painting in the room, I painted another study with the foliage more golden yellow to match. I also warmed up the cliffs in the background to match. I didn’t want to just paint over my first study as I thought it was a good salable painting in it’s own right.

Dear Mary,

I won’t walk through the painting again, but the first jpg seemed to have too much yellow, especially in the big trees. It seemed once I painted it large, the yellows would be overpowering. So, I thinned out the leaves a little and added a few more oranges & reds. These are actually a bunch of Black Oaks (or Cottonwoods??) and if I treat them more like individual trees with their own color it looks a little better. Also, the cliffs seemed too dark and blue for a fall scene, so I lighted and warmed them up considerably, and adjusted the rest of the painting accordingly.

I mailed the actual second study to the collectors and asked them to take a photo of it beside the painting in the room. Since cameras, monitors, lighting, etc. can vary widely, the only way to get an exact comparison is to have both in the same picture.

Painting by Walter Bailey with my study.

Here is my response to Mary:

Dear Mary,

Seeing the two paintings side by side is very revealing! The yellows in the Bailey painting are a little brighter than I thought, but seem fairly in line with my study. Yes, I can put more blue in the sky and gray/blue out the cliffs if you want. There was a method to my madness…

The cloudy skies represent a harbinger of winter, and I would suggest we might leave in just a few wisps to keep a little interest in that area. The very dark, very saturated blue in the Bailey painting I don’t think would work across the entire sky, but more something in between.

I originally had the cliffs grayer and bluer, but thought a little more purple would represent warmer fall colors better, but either is fine. In the final large painting, (attached it again for your convenience) they are actually grayer/bluer, but still have quite a bit of purple and I would like to leave just a touch of purple on Sentinel Rock, as that draws your eye back into the painting a little more. At any rate, if this sounds OK with you, I will proceed.

As you can see the yellows in the two paintings were similar, and the collectors were satisfied with this study.

I had already started blocking in and working on the large final canvas, but no changes needed to be made as I had not yet reached the stage where colors were an issue.

My palette here consists of Ultramarine Blue, Cobalt Blue, Quinacridone Red, Cadmium Red Medium, Sap Green, Transparent Iron Oxide, Cadmium Orange, Yellow Ochre, and Cadmium Yellow Medium. I occasionally use other colors, but this is my primary palette.

I usually pre-mix a combination of Ultramarine Blue and Quinacridone Red to form a purple. This is usually the only use of Ultramarine I use in a painting. For most of the blue tones during the painting process, I usually stick with Cobalt Blue. I also mix Cobalt Blue and Cadmium Red Deep to get a rich gray.

My brushes are a #12 Bright for about 90% of the painting. I did occasionally use other brushes such as #12 filbert to do the sky and part of the cliffs. I used the round in order to get a little softer edge in places.

Starting the final large canvas, I first drew in the basic composition. Since I had a fairly complete study to go by, I didn’t need a lot of detail in the drawing. I did however detail Sentintenal Rock in the background. The profile had to be correct as it is a recognizable landmark in Yosemite Valley.

Dear Mary,

Thought you might like to get periodic updates on the progress of the painting. The attached jpg is my initial sketch-in. It doesn’t look like much, just a general indication of major masses. Since I have a study to work from, many details can be left out of the sketch. The one important item though, is the profile of Sentinel Rock. Since it is a recognizable landmark, I have to get it’s profile just right or the painting won’t work. I hope to get the background cliffs done by the beginning of next week as I will be in Tahoe much of that week.

Normally, I would block in much of the painting prior to working in detail. However, in this instance since I had a fairly detailed study to work with, I basically painted the canvas top down.

The sky and cliffs are painted primarily with my pre-mixed gray and purple with touches of other colors such as Cobalt Blue in the sky. I used primarily a #12 filbert bristle in order to keep the edges soft.

I sent a new jpg to the collectors, and received this response:

Dear Donald,

Overall we really love the painting. There is one adjustment we would like to suggest to see what you think. As you will see from the photos (and it’s even stronger in daylight), your painting’s mountains have a purplish cast and the sky is fairly white. These are the elements that most differ from the Bailey painting. And we our best memories of Yosemite tends toward gray granite and bright blue skies–which I think might line up better with the Bailey. Do you think those adjustments would work?

I now begin the painting in earnest. I agreed with Mary’s assesment that the cliffs were a little too warm or purple. I used mainly some Cobalt Blue, white, and some gray to cool them down and lighten them up.

The cliffs are now basically complete and I start blocking in the foliage and stream bank. With the foliage, I block in the rear darker, working my way forward in lighter colors. I use a variety of colors from Transparent Red Oxide to Cadmium Yellows. Highlight areas are left for last.

I will do the stream and reflections last as they need to accurately reflect the landscape.

Continuing to work on the foliage, I paint the background evergreens, the large oaks and continue on the stream bank. I keep using brighter Cadmiums such as Orange and Yellow in more purer colors as I layer in the foliage.

Dear Mary,

Here is another update. Much of the middle ground foliage and stream bank is in, maybe about 2/3 done. When the painting got large, the grassy stream bank looked too monotonous, so have added even more interest with a little erosion, more rocks, etc. Am still on track to finish the bulk of the work this week. Once this is done, I usually put it away over a period of several weeks and look at it occasionally with a fresh eye every few days to make adjustments.

After putting in most of the stream, I was starting to become dissatisfied with parts, especially the stream reflections.

Dear Mary,

Just an update. I have painted in the Merced, fleshed out more of the river bank, and put more definition in the left and right banks. Frankly, I am not happy with the results, but here it is anyway. I painted and scraped parts of the Merced multiple times and it is still not right…the small jpg may look OK, but it is a mess, and the Merced deserves better. I may scrub much of it entirely tomorrow with a fresh look. The rocks on the left stream bank are not right…there is no balance.

I did scrub much of the stream and redo it. It had become too thick and muddy with paint. I generally paint water fairly thin without a lot of paint. This gives it a more liquid look as contrasted with the surrounding ground, which is put on more thickly.

I also scraped out the far left evergreen…

Dear Mary,

Attached is another jpg of where I am at now. Since I last emailed, I scraped and redid the water. Although it still needs more work, it looks much better now, but you may not be able to tell a lot of difference just from the jpg. I also changed the rocks, and the river bank needed something more, so added a redbud to break it up. I also modified the large foreground rocks, and may change them more once I get further along. I also painted out the evergreen on the far left. As I had it, it made the painting look a little claustrophobic. I need something there to bring your eye back into the painting, so might either paint another evergreen with less foliage, or maybe a dead tree or leafless tree.

The evergreen on the left is painted back in with a little less foliage, and the stream is improved.

Dear Mary,

Attached is another jpg. At this point, all the elements are in and I consider the painting basically ‘complete’. However, as I mentioned before, I let it sit for awhile and make adjustments over a period of several weeks with an occasional fresh look.

Although not readily apparent in the jpg, minor adjustments are made all over the painting. After emailing the latest jpg to the collectors, I received this response.

Dear Donald,

I think it’s gorgeous. I have only two things to suggest: (1) The four boulders in a row in the lower left corner (starting at the new tree and reaching into the river) are rather uniform in shape, I might like some differentiation. (2) I also think the sky still looks a little grey–I do love the bright blue mid day sky in Yosemite. What do you think?

This was the response I was looking for. They liked the work overall, but also took enough time to go over it in detail to offer suggestions.

After a few more adjustments and adopting their suggestions, here is a little larger image of the final painting.

Since the collectors live in San Francisco, which is a little over an hours drive, I delivered it personally, which was the first time we met face to face.

I also brought my paints along in case they wanted any minor color adjustments. They liked it as delivered so no further changes were made. Here is a photo of them holding the painting in front of the wall it will hang. The original agreement was to deliver it unframed. They seemed very pleased and I hope they still are!