Jane’s home
I didn’t do much today other than work and paint… so figured well, might as well post about that!
I’ve been slowly but surely working my way through about 25 digital illustrations of homes that burned down in the California wildfires. One of the first ones that came across my plate was a woman about my age who asked me to do 2 - one of her fiance’s childhood home and one of her’s. She was already a stranger to me - I think she must have found that I was doing these through a friend - so her fiance’s mother was even more removed.
About a week after finishing it and sending it off, I got a DM on my art instagram.
“Hi, Larkin, wow, what a beautiful painting you did of the home that I lived in for 35 years,” the message began. Her name was Jane. And she wanted a commission of her home but on a much, much larger scale. Luckily for me, Jane’s home was my favorite home that I’ve drawn to date. It was a gorgeous blue with bougainvillea sprawling all throughout her garage and pathway in. It’s one of those homes that you can just tell was extremely loved.
I explained to her that while I’d been doing all of these illustrations for free, for a physical piece that’s as big as what she wanted, I felt terrible but needed to charge. (I should not have felt terrible. Jane was more than willing to compensate me. I think she actually would have insisted.)
We went back and forth a bit, ironing out details and making sure that I was going to capture all the little details of her lost home that were most important to both her and her family. We decided on fall, because she is very big into multi colored pumpkins and wreaths across every door. She sent me every photo she could find. It was a tough reminder that we don’t take very many photos of places that we’re in every single day. How many pictures do you have of the outside of your house? Fortunately, over the span of 35 years, Jane has taken a few that were very helpful for me and my process. I can do a lot with Google earth, but some areas were blocked by trees and tiny little details tend to get lost.
A few days ago, I finished the sketch for the painting. Yesterday, I completed most of the ink outlines. Today, I finally got into the watercolor.
I am so so happy with how it’s turning out so far and cannot wait to show Jane!
