A Convention Party at Experience Music Project, Seattle

 

An evening at EMP, by Sam Day, 2014, oil on canvas, 24 x 30

   I guess if you haven’t been to EMP, this painting of hundreds of guitars takes some explaining.

  This year, the American Land Title Insurance Association chose Seattle for their annual convention, and after the usual meetings, came to the EMP Museum at Seattle Center to let their hair down.

   Experience Music Project is the brain child and pet project of Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen, and was originally an homage to Jimi Hendrix— expanded to laud all popular music. It is now an exposition of all things pop culture. The museum is housed in one of the most infamous creations of architect Frank Gehry, a building as controversial as anything shown in the museum.  Its Sky Church concert hall, with one of the world’s largest indoor HD LED screens, was the center of our soirée. An incredible cover band played popular hits, decade by decade, from the 60s to the present.

  At the center of the EMP, towering over Jimi Hendrix (pictured in the lower left of my painting), is a sculpture titled If VI Was IX: Roots and Branches. The sculptor-composer is known as Trimpin, a MacArthur Genius who is kind of an extreme hybrid of John Cage and RubeGoldberg. It is an assemblage of about 700 instruments, including drums, brass, a few keyboards, and a big white bass viol. But it is mostly guitars, many of them donated by the great guitar makers such as Gibson and Fender. More than forty of these instruments were custom made to Trimpin’s designs, so that they play robotically as directed by his software. The title of the piece— If VI WasIX: Roots and Branches— refers to the origins and diversity of rock music. It is a massive tree; a whole forest, vibrating with color and majesty.

 This painting was given to the client’s outgoing chairman and his wife, who appear at the lower right of the painting with their friends.

Dinner with Heart – American Heart Association Gala

I’m pleased to paint at this auction every year. The American Heart Association funds vital research that has saved countless lives.

Steping back a bit from the usual black tie affair, this year’s event was held in the perfectly preserved barn at the Kelley Farm (est. 1864), in Bonney Lake, WA.

The painting in progress— I arrive early and paint the scene, then add people during the cocktail hour, as a live performance. 

I'm indebted to Nicole Ryan Photography for this great sequence of images documenting the progress of my painting. Daniel Smith Art Supplies donated the Fredrix Pro canvas. 

The working palette

On stage during the live auction— the painting is finished, except for the buyers' portraits. At the end of the night, the winning bidder  and company will be painted in to the central space in the foreground. 

Painting from life: putting the winning bidders into their painting

The finished painting at twightlight

The brushes at rest

Dinner with Heart, American Heart Association Gala, 2014, by Sam Day. Oil on canvas, 24 x 36 inches

Ron and Bruce, Hilton Garden Inn, Issaquah, Washington

This was one of those weddings where the couple has been together for thirty years before tying the knot. As more than one person said in more than one toast, “It’s about time.”

It was also one of those weddings where I was asked to paint the ceremony— I usually do the reception— and it only lasted fifteen minutes. The solution to this seemingly difficult task, of course, is easy. I arrived early enough to paint the room and backdrop before the ceremony, and was therefore able to focus on just the couple during those crucial few minutes that they faced each other in front of the judge. Then the chapel seating was pulled away and the tables were pulled out, and I had a few leisurely hours to paint the assembly at dinner.

One of the grooms’ nieces was there early as well, and she stood at my left elbow every minute she was allowed. Other nieces can be seen across the room, doing what teenagers do at weddings these days: texting each other.

It was an intimate family wedding, and I hope I’ve painted it in an intimate, family way.

Korum Ford 50th Anniversary

As much as I love painting live at weddings, it’s nice to throw in something different now and then.

Jerry Korum founded his Ford dealership in Puyallup, Washington, in 1963. After fifty years, he has no intention of quitting the business. His children threw him a (surprise!) party to commemorate the milestone. Among the guests were the mayor and the general in charge of nearby Joint Base Lewis-McChord, both praising the founder for his contributions to the community.

The bright car pictured at right, from the owner’s collection, is 1963 Thunderbird, the same body style that Thelma and Louise famously drove over a cliff. But his pride and joy is the ’57 Bird in the background at left, with the dainty opera window in the removable hardtop.

The owner and his wife greet guests in the foreground, and figures recognizable to them are scattered through the painting, both family and friends. Their youngest granddaughter dances on a riser just behind the roses.

A 60th Birthday Party at Newcastle Country Club

This celebrant’s friends appreciate her sense of style. They all came dressed in black and white; only the guest of honor was dressed in red. Prestwick Terrace, the permanent party tent at The Golf Club at Newcastle, was likewise festooned with black table cloths and white flowers.

As always, I arrived early enough to get a head start painting the room (big top) and the view. This is a magnificent place to watch a sunset, and the last time I painted here I depicted the evening at dusk. This time I chose the bright summer sunlight. By the time the sun went down, all I had left to paint were faces, anyway. Oh, and one tireless birthday girl in a bright red dress.

Esselbach-Gwinn Wedding, Newcastle Country Club, Bellevue, WA

When I paint a wedding, one of my pleasures is the individuality and character of each couple, their event design, and the culture specific to their family and friends. This couple were part of Wazzu culture, the epicenter of which happens to be my hometown. I’ve painted at a few Cougar weddings. It was great to hear the WSU fight song again. (John Candy sang it in the movie ‘Stripes.’)

It’s also a pleasure to paint beautiful people, and this bride was so beautiful, it felt like a sacrifice to paint them on the dance floor instead of up close, where you could see her smile better. But the couple spent so much of the evening on the dance floor, it was quite appropriate to depict them there. These are the challenges of a wedding painter. Unlike a photographer, I’m creating just one image over the course of several hours. It is a montage of the event and the scope of its time, but depicted as a snapshot as if it all happened at once. Parents aren’t any easier to pin down to stand for a portrait, since they’re so happily mixing with their guests. But that’s why I stay ‘til the last dance, if need be. They’re here in front, as proud as they should be.

The venue was the Golf Club at Newcastle, perched a thousand or so feet above the suburbs of Seattle, almost in the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, with one of the most spectacular views of any venue in the region. The ceremony, and later the dancing, were held on Prestwick Terrace, a tented pavilion of circus proportions. Dinner was inside the clubhouse, in the St. Andrews Ballroom.  I painted the tent before and during the ceremony, including the expansive view, while anticipating how the light would change as the sun went down. But it wasn’t until nine o’clock, when the guests came back from dinner, that I was able to begin painting people.

And that’s my favorite part.

Painting the Tacoma Heart Ball 2012, Hotel Murano

     The Tacoma Heart Ball is the annual gala auction for the Tacoma chapter of the American Heart Association. Friday, April 27, 2012 was the third year I’ve painted this event. The venue this year was the über-stylish Hotel Murano. Formerly the Sheraton Tacoma, a stark, mid century Modern high rise, the Murano is now a veritable art museum. It’s namesake is the famed glass blowing island in Venice, where centuries of tradition have refined the glass art that lives on in the Pacific Northwest, in large part because of Tacoma’s native son cum patron, Dale Chihuly.

     In this tall lobby, enormous glass canoes hang like chandeliers— an homage yet again, this time to the Salish tribes of Puget Sound. They appear distant in my painting only because they are. I set up my easel on the third story of a four story atrium, looking down the long hall toward the ballroom. We see the canoes lengthwise, so in the painting, alas, they look like hanging vases. 

     The nearer chandelier is a magnificent tangle of reflective glass from the isle of Murano itself, and the largest that glass artist has ever made. Another hanging feature— for one night only— is a trapeze artist in the stairwell, serving champagne to the guests. 

     The hotel lobby bar is to the left on the main level. Unfortunately hidden beneath the balcony from my view, the bar’s north wall is almost entirely covered by a framed print, my favorite work of art in the building: a full size Chuck Close (another Washington favorite son.)

This labyrinth of architecture was a challenge to paint, and per usual, I bent the perspective to include all that I could see. At charity auctions, I always paint the buyer of the painting into the foreground, and we see him here approaching as if he’d just come off the elevators (unseen, to the right.)

Macias-Lawson Wedding, Arctic Club Hotel, Seattle, November 26, 2011

The Arctic Club Hotel is one of the greatest pieces of architecture in Seattle. Built in 1917, it is distinguished by two-dozen terra cotta walrus heads lining the Cherry Street and Third Avenue facades. After the Nisqually earthquake ten years ago, when the building was languishing as city offices, some of these walruses had their tusks held on with duct tape. But in recent years the building has been acquired and beautifully restored to its historic splendor by a company of Mr. William Lawson, whose son was married there on Saturday.

The building is mixture of architectural styles, but the Dome Room evokes Paris in the Belle Époque. I have painted in the room before, and I hope to again— many times. In fact, I think it would be my dream art studio. So it was really a privilege to paint the room for its new owners.

This painting was also an opportunity for me to do something I’ve never done before: a vertical wedding painting. The size and format were actually dictated by the wall on which the painting will eventually hang, but it works compositionally because of the Dome Room’s magnificent stained glass ceiling, which occupies the top half of the painting.

At most weddings and events, I paint on a French easel, which is a portable travel set designed in the days of the Impressionists to carry enough paints in the box for a plein aire outing. I use this for paintings up to 30 inches high, though it gets a little rickety with torque on paintings as wide as 40 inches. For the Macias-Lawson wedding, the canvas was 48 wide and 60 high— the second largest I’ve done for an event, and by far the tallest. I rented a van to move a big easel from the studio, even though the venue was just six blocks away! (Its also unadvisable to walk through the neighborhood carrying a big wet oil painting in the rain, after midnight.) The easel was designed for paintings up to 59 inches high, and needed a minor modification for this job. But it has a great sliding carriage, which allowed me to set the painting low at first, when I painted that grand ceiling before the wedding, and simply slide the whole thing up the ratcheted vertical support to paint the lower half during the reception. I used my French easel on the side for a tableau, to hold my paint and brushes.

It really would take a week to faithfully and realistically render the architectural details of this exquisite room. But as with paintings I’ve done at The Ruins, where an excellent muralist labored for three years to adorn the place, my scribblings are quick impressions, meant to evoke that single evening in its magic moment. By constricting my painting time to the time of the event (with some allowance to paint the setting in just the hours before), I control, harness, and channel the energy of expedience. If I were to take the painting back to the studio to touch it up, dither over it, and— as one of my illustration teachers called it — noodle it to death, that energy would leak out of the painting. Some people, upon hearing (but not seeing) what I do, ask me if I’m going to take a photo of the wedding, and do the whole painting back at the studio. I could, of course, and I could make the painting look just like the photo. But you can get that from any of several corporate studios that email your photos to China, where factory artists copy them faithfully for the cost of a good craft store frame.

There are no photos from any wedding that depict what I paint; I do not capture a sliver of time in a click of a shutter, but the whole elapse of the evening over several hours. Mini-portrait-caricatures depict the key figures. The bride and groom, in this case, were painted in their entirety during their First Dance. I have to confess here that I take extensive liberties with perspective, even with my point of view. I have compressed nearly 180 degrees of view into this vertical rectangle. When a camera does this, we call it a fish-eye lens, and close objects become enormous and far details disappear. Its great for documenting architecture, but people, not so much. I paint as if I were on a ladder, and the floor angled like a raked stage. This allows me to give elements within the room relatively equal importance as events, rather than distorting closer things.

Artistry lies as much in the process and interpretation of what the artist sees, as in the skill with which it is rendered.

Urban Unveiled, 2011, at Seattle's Benaroya Hall

It was a pleasure to be invited to paint at Urban Unveiled for the third year in a row. The painting belongs to Jesse Brix and Travis Burney of True Colors events, which produces this hip

wedding show, featuring a fashion show by Luly Yang.

Painting the lobby of Seattle’s Benaroya Hall presents a challenge, to the nth degree, that I face in some measure at any wedding reception that runs into the evening. That is, I have to begin a painting during daylight, knowing that I will finish it after dark. All of my wedding and event paintings are a snapshot not of a moment in time, but a span of time over several hours. I have yet to try to depict both daytime and nighttime on the same canvas. I have to decide which it is, and almost always, it needs to be whichever comes later.

I always come to the venue a couple of hours before an event, and paint the room. Once the event begins, I can then focus on just painting people. But that means painting the grand lobby of this symphony hall in bright, south facing daylight. The people arrive as the setting sun colors the skyscrapers outside these four story glass walls with rapidly changing shadows, and then the ceiling dances with choreographed up-lighting, as the windows go dark and reflect the interior. From the very beginning, I paint in anticipation of this final lighting. At first, the window frames are dark lines against a bright background. But I know they will later become light lines against a dark background.

I know this because I’ve painted here before. But when I paint somewhere new, especially when it’s a destination wedding and I haven’t been able to scout out the place beforehand, I have to learn to look around and visualize with prescience. Always, even in familiar venues, I have to ask the planner what the lighting design will be— what will be dimmed, what will be accentuated.

Then, as everything changes, I take what comes, and paint from direct observation. It is the opposite of the perfection one seeks in studio painting. But the result is always something spontaneous, fluid, and irreplaceably unique.

Sizes and Prices, 2011

I've had a surge of inquiries lately. I've also checked blog stats lately, and I see that the increased traffic also seems to be finding last year's listing of sizes and prices. So to make things a little more clear, here are the prices that are good through the end of 2011. Clients who book before the end of the year for dates next year or even later nevertheless get to lock in this year's prices.

Travel cost usually includes air fare and lodging for two nights, although larger paintings take more preparation time at the destination.

Inches Centimeters US Dollars

24 x 30 61 x 76 $2500

24 x 36 61 x 91 $2800

24 x 40 61 x 102 $3250

30 x 40 76 x 102 $4000

36 x 48 91 x 122 $5000

48 x 60 122 x 152 $6000

48 x 72 122 x 183 $7500

48 x 80 122 x 203 $9000

A Barbecue Among Friends

Not every event painting is a wedding painting. As you read older posts, you’ll find I’ve painted live at birthday parties, retirement parties, charity auctions, and even a wake. (That was a great memorial, with great people remembering a great person.) So it is not so strange that the occasion of this painting is simply a barbecue among friends.

The hosts had graciously allowed me to use their home for a photo shoot for one of my religious paintings, my reference for which involves costumed models and sets of some detail. (You can read about this at my other blog, here.) In exchange, they asked me to paint their barbecue later that evening.

As often happens in Seattle in autumn, dinner on the terrace was redirected indoors by a fragrant rain.