God and Abraham Replica of a Replica

A friend of mine used to work with a guy who came across this picture in a textbook and fell in love with it.

"This illustration is a seventeenth-century copy of an illumination from the Cotton Genesis, a late fifth-century Greek manuscript.  In it, God extends his right hand to bless Abraham and instruct him to go to Haran.  In the Bible, Abraham leaves for Haran with his father, while in the Book of Abraham, Abraham leaves and Terah later follows him.  The extrabiblical traditions are somewhat divided on this point as well.  In some, Abraham leaves without his father, and in others, they go together." *

He wanted an original painted replica of the piece and asked if I would paint it for him.

I accepted the challenge not really knowing what to expect from the result since I've never attempted to duplicate anything like this before.  The first challenge right off the bat was determining the size of the painting.  The original is short and long and not at all a standard size.  I had to choose if I was going to paint it to scale leaving large margins around the top and bottom or attempt to resize it so that it filled the full canvas.

I opted for the second choice, bought a 14"x18" canvas, cropped some of the sky off the right, added some grass to the bottom and didn't mess with the ratios of the sun and figure at all.  I started with a pencil outline that I drew on the canvas and then got right to painting.  Here is the finished product.

"God and Abraham" Replica of a Replica acrylic on canvas 14" x 18"

Clearly, no one would ever mistake my version for the original and my painting has a slightly more cartoony feel that is consistent with my past experience, but overall, I'm very happy with it.  I didn't quite capture Abraham's expression, but there comes a point in trying and retrying where you just have to declare it done even though it's not quite how you want it.  Sometimes, the more you work on it the worse it gets, and the trick of a successful painting is stopping before you hit that point.  The colors also turned out much more vibrant than the original painting, something that I didn't intend to have happen, but in the end, I actually like the brighter colors better.

This project was actually coordinated through my friend's, friend's wife as a gift for his birthday coming up next week.  He had originally asked if I would be interested in doing this project for him over a year ago and the conversation never went anywhere.  He doesn't even know that I agreed to attempt the painting in the first place and won't be expecting it at all.  I'm excited for his wife to give it to him and kind of wish I could see his face when he opens it.

I hope he likes it.  I do.

*John A. Tvedtnes, Briam M. Hauglid, and John Gee, Traditions about the Early Life of Abraham (Institute for the Study and Preservation for Ancient Religious Texts Brigham Young, University), p. 528.

UPDATE (5/2/13):
It wasn't until after this project was complete and delivered and I was entering the bibliography information from the original book into this blog post that I really paid attention to the names of the authors of the book.  One of them, John Gee, stood out to me, but I couldn't quite place it.  Through some detective work I finally figured out that he was my brother-in-law's college roommate at the best man at my sister's wedding.  What are the odds?  Small world!

The Many Faces of Sparks

This is Sparks.

He's our cat.

He's one of those cats who is fun, playful, cuddly and always getting into things. He has such a cute personality and is so easy going that we often joke about what a character he is. He gets new nicknames all the time based on the mischief that he's getting into.

For Christmas, I made this calendar in Photoshop to show some of "The Many Faces of Sparks." Each month features one of these pictures, which I believe accurately reflects exactly what I think Sparks does during the day while we are at work.

Return of the Halloween Window

We used to live in a townhouse that had an awesome sliding glass door in the back.  You could see it from the parking lot as well as the grocery store next door and we always got a lot of commentary when I painted it for various holidays.  I wish I had some pictures of some of the artwork I did on it, but sadly, I don't.

 

We've lived in our current house for 5 years now, and although it had a sliding glass door up until this year when we replaced it, it wasn't visible to anyone but us, so decorating it wasn't as much fun.  The front windows that faced the street were also a bust because they were the kind that had the decorative dividers that broke up the window so there wasn't a flat painting surface.  We made do with other decorations, but I've really missed the annual Halloween window painting.

 

Well... good news!  This year, we replaced the main front room window with nice picture glass and no dividers!  Hooray!  The ability to paint is back!

 

It's not a huge window so it still isn't quite as much fun as the sliding glass door, but it is better than nothing.  For the window debut, I wanted to do something somewhat representative of our lives.  I live with my best friend Kristin and we had 3 cats.  My mom died earlier this year and she also had 3 cats.  We tried hard to find homes for them, but there weren't any solutions or offers that we felt good about and finally just last month, on September 26, her 3 cats came to live with us permanently.

 

Trying to integrate 6 cats created a kind of crazy in our lives that I didn't know was possible to live with.  It's a difficult transition and Kristin and I joke all the time about how we've turned into crazy witches to people who make negative comments about our efforts.  So, I thought I would set everyone strait with a visual reply to their opinions.  My thoughts about my life and my priorities aren't about to change anytime soon and in case anyone isn't sure what those are, they can be reminded when they look at our first ever window painting in our new house.  I call it "Family Portrait."

 

Superman Bedroom

This is my nephew's bedroom.

Even though painting the windows on all those buildings was incredibly boring, this is my favorite mural to date.  I've had a life long crush on Superman and I've always wanted to have a superman room in my house.  I love how this turned out!

I keep joking that one of these days I'm going to paint an addition on the opposite wall of Lois Lane hanging from the top of a building in distress.  If I ever actually do it, I'll be sure to post pictures.

Granny's Smile

My sweet mother died on March 24, 2012 after a valiant 10 month battle fighting pancreatic cancer.  I painted this in her memory and in honor of her one month anniversary of leaving this earth.


"Granny's Smile"
24" x 24" acrylic on canvas

She had been strong and healthy prior to her diagnosis and the news of what was to be hit the whole family hard.  She was 75 years young and I wasn't ready to lose her.  I wanted a portrait of her to hang in my house that would maintain her presence in my life.

I used a method of painting that I learned from Gary Max Collins and John Collins, well known local Utah artists, during a volunteer project that they did with the kids at The Children's Center where I work.  It was an honor to be able to work with these two incredibly talented men for a day. In their process, you size a photograph to scale and divide it up into one inch squares and cut it apart.  Then you measure out the equal number of squares on your canvas and use painters tape to isolate each one.  The painting is created square by square and since the painters tape covers details of all the adjoining squares, you can't see how the section that you are working on connects or relates to the rest of the painting until after you are done and remove the tape.  It creates a pretty cool effect.  I now lovingly refer to this method as Gary squares.

Here is the painting Gary and John made with the kids that inspired my project.

"36 Children Paint Spring" acrylic on canvas 36"x36"
The original photograph that the painting was made from is in the lower right hand corner (click image to enlarge) and the painting was made by children in the Therapeutic Preschool each painting one square.

I chose to do the single color of purple because it is the ribbon color for pancreatic cancer.  To learn more about pancreatic cancer, or to support the cause, visit www.pancan.org.

Here is the original photograph that I created the painting from.

The quality of the original photo is blurry and terrible, but it remains one of my favorites because I love the expression on my mom's face so much.  It is total and complete happiness, exactly how I want to remember her.  I think my painting totally captured the spirit of my mom and I love having it hung up in my house.

The Princess and the Frog

Just playing around with Photoshop and my nieces prom pictures.

 



Paint by Number

These pieces doesn't really count as art in my mind because I didn't actually "create" either of these paintings.  They are just Paint by Number projects purchased from the store as a fun thing to do with one of our nieces.  The design is already printed on a board and the colors predetermined by little numbers inside the shapes that correspond to little paint containers that come with the kit. Still, they were fun to paint, and I had never actually done a paint by number before, let alone two.  I liked how they turned out well enough that they hang in my bathroom.

So, even though I totally feel like it is cheating, here are the finished products:

"Dolphins" 8" x 10" acrylic on pre-printed paint by number board

"Butterflies" 8" x 10" acrylic on pre-printed paint by number board