Pan Pacific Hotel Bridal Open House

It's a pleasure to participate in several bridal shows a year. This one on February 17, 2011, was at the Pan Pacific Hotel-Seattle.

The Pan Pacific-Seattle is the international hotel chain's first location in the United States, having established its luxury mark throughout Asia and the Pacific Rim from its base in Singapore. It is indeed grand, richly paneled in lightly stained wenge, my favorite tropical hardwood. (Look closely at the walls in the painting. They have horizontal stripes. If you go to this hotel, be bold enough to run your fingers along the wall; you can feel the age lines of these trees.)

The Grow Your Love Bridal Open House was not your typical sprawling convention center trade show. It was a more intimate affair, hosted as a mock wedding, with 200 brides-to-be as the invited guests. Actors were hired as the bride and groom of the evening, whose gregarious mothers warbled an amusingly altered version of "Sunrise, Sunset" from Fiddler on the Roof. They were married by a nice Reverend and toasted by their shy, proud fathers, all local actors. They even tossed the bouquet and cut the cake. I've immortalized them in this painting as I would any real couple.

My friend BreeAnn Gale of Pink Blossom Events orchestrated this fair, and I would have painted her into the scene, but she didn't stand still long enough. And frankly, I have a lot of experience painting people who aren't standing still.

I get asked about this a lot:

"Are you going to take photos and paint from the pictures?"

"If I give you photos of my [already transpired] wedding, can you paint from that?"

My specialty is painting live. This is the ancient art of looking at things and painting them as they happen. I do need a few minutes with the bride and groom, generally.

A lot of my wedding paintings can be a bit dark, as they are paintings of receptions in romantically dimmed rooms. This one is brightened by spring green fabrics from Aría|Style, whose talented owner wore a coat of matching silk, embroidered with pink flowers to evoke the accent lighting that uplit the corners of the room. She appears mid-painting, against the wall. For me, this green theme evoked my parents' dining room, which is trimmed in a similar shade of tulip stem, against walls of just barely minter-than-white— my father's design.

But I digress.

Did I mention the few from deck, with its veriegated pebble garden and teak lounge chairs?

Six Foot Painting at Tutta Bella - Wallingford

On April 26, 2009, my client rented out the restaurant Tutta Bella in Wallingford, Seattle, Washington, for a 60^th birthday bash. This was my greatest challenge to date, because of the enormous size. At six feet wide and four feet high, the canvas is nearly eight times the size of my regular 24” x 30” event paintings. But I had to complete the painting in the same amount of time— a four hour party, plus three hours of set up.

I actually spent days preparing. I stretched the canvas myself, because I’m rarely pleased with off-the shelf products this size. I also built a special carrying case to transport the painting when wet.

I arrived at 8 am to set up for an 11:30 event. After about an hour of set up and mixing paint, I began painting the background.

I was trying to include about a 150 degree view, so I had to visually bend the architecture like a fisheye lens. As with all these paintings, lot of quick brush work has to be done in the beginning. Even very thin washes still take a lot of paint at this size. Everything is umber and ochre at first. Areas I want lighter are altered by lifting out paint with citrus thinner. Detail is added later in thicker layers.

After lunch, core family members stayed til nearly 4 pm. The clients' grandchildren stood for their portraits in the foreground.

Music to paint by! Richard Sclafani and Peter Cicero, of the italian folk duo the Tarantellas, serenaded the finishing touches.

The excellent planning was orchestrated by Jesse Brix and Travis McBurney of True Colors Events. The event was photographed by the talented staff at Imigri, and all the photos I have of me at this event are copyrighted by them.