As Katy and I drive to Hoodsport and back every Sunday, I always keep a watch for interesting art subjects. I especially like the odd clutch of shacks and sheds among the trees that you see in rural Washington. One Sunday near Shelton I spotted this cluster of small one-bedroom houses that I just had to paint. In my imagination they were built in the 1940s as housing for Shelton millworkers, or maybe they were tourist cabins that sprang up along Highway 101 in the 1930s.
Last October I agreed to do some art work for the Very Rev. Steve Thomason, Dean of St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Seattle. He commissioned me to make a few watercolors and ink sketches of the cathedral. He’ll reproduce these and use the prints as thank you gifts for the donors of their fund drive this Spring. Great idea!
I accepted the commission not knowing how burdensome it would be. The cathedral itself is a huge block, a big monolith, with few features to paint. I made a few watercolors that you can see in an earlier post here, but then I got “artist’s block.” How could I make this interesting? I let it rest for a few weeks but when I got back to it, I was still stumped.
Since it was a commission I had agreed to do (and I’d already cashed the check!), I couldn’t give up. In February Steve emailed me and asked how it was coming along. That jolted me into action, so I buckled down and started to work. I searched the cathedral website and Facebook page and found numerous photos that piqued my interest. I especially liked a photo of three acolytes and a robed minister, so I put them in front of the massive cathedral in an ink sketch. I liked that.
Then I made an ink drawing of the front of the cathedral with cross-hatching for the shadows and painted a light wash of ink over the drawing. Because the ink lines were still slightly wet, the ink smeared and created a striking profile of the building.
I like this sketch a lot, but I think it’s too messy for a thank you gift. Plus it’s on flimsy paper. So I decided to do it again on better paper and not quite so messy. It took two attempts, but here’s what I came up with.
Then I made an ink sketch of the interior of the building. It was difficult to get the angles correct and to find the right shading, but I think the result is satisfactory.
Finally, I made one more watercolor of the South side of the cathedral, trying to get a feel for the light on the big mass of the building. I made many other sketches and paintings that didn’t make the grade and I spent a lot of time on this commission, way more than I planned. I’m thankful for the commission (and the income) and I’m grateful that my art work will be seen by the donors recognized by the Dean, but I had no idea this commission would commandeer several weeks of my life. The next time I’m asked to do a commission, I think I’ll politely decline!
