Jubilee at the WAC

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Jubilee at the Washington Athletic Club, Seattle. Oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

Since 1930, the Washington Athletic Club has been at the center of Seattle’s civic life, with members including the state’s prominent politicians and business leaders, and even Olympic athletes.

This last Saturday, the club kicked off its 86^th year with this elegant holiday party. Dubbed ‘the Art of Celebration,’ There was a Warhol room, a da Vinci room, a Toulouse room, a Picasso room, and so on. I painted in the Toulouse room, although a reveler asked me if I was trying to be Monet.

Tongue out of cheek, people often compare my wedding and event paintings

to Monet. But honestly, I’m not trying to be anyone but myself— and I’m not searching for my own style either. I’m just scribbling as fast as I can, intent on committing the evening to canvas. It is what it is.

Detail of Jubilee at the WAC: woman dancing

Painting the Taste of Tulalip

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The Taste of Tulalip, oil on canvas, 24 x 30 inches

As a wedding and event painter, I watch people eat a lot of great food while I paint. Of course clients offer me a plate, and sometimes even a place at the table, but I rarely have time for that. If people are sitting down, it’s time for me to paint.

The Taste of Tulalip, in it’s seventh year, is an invitational bringing together chefs, sommeliers, winemakers, and connoisseurs for a weekend of seminars, demonstrations, and gala dinners. I painted during the Italian-themed celebratory dinner, on a riser adjacent to the main stage.

My view was much wider than I included in the painting, and this time I decided not to try to bend the perspective to fit it all in. But I did make sure to get the contortionist on the left.

Tulalip Resort is a gaming casino, of course. So some time before dessert, the announcers instructed everyone to look under the cushion of their seat, and the individual who found there a sequined letter ‘T’ would go home with my painting. I painted her in the lower right.

Rehearsal Dinner at The Ruins

Philips-Schweickert Rehearsal Dinner by Sam Day, 24 x 36 inches, oil on canvas

At the foot of Queen Anne Hill in Seattle, not far from the Space Needle, opera and ballet, there’s a old boxy warehouse with the elegance of Europe inside. The Ruins is a private dining club, where it seems we’ve entered the treasure hold of some keen-eyed collector’s rummaging trips to the continent. There are several comfortable sitting rooms for small parties, and a great dining room that feels like a trip to grandmas— if your grandma lived in a villa. And then there’s the ballroom.

The ceiling and walls of the ballroom are covered completely with murals of northwest scenes, by Jennifer Carrasco. All of her years of careful labor are loosely limned in about two hours’ work in my painting.

But that’s just backdrop to my client’s event.

This couple were married two days later at the Rainier Club. But this more intimate, unrushed evening was just for family and bridal party. The bride’s daughter, who spent a good deal of time serenading us at the piano, appears in the lower right with her flower girl friends, and her dog.

The couple

Canal Wedding

Johnson Wedding at The Canal, by Sam Day, 24 x 36 inches, oil on canvas

The Canal is a popular event venue overlooking the locks on the Lake Washington Ship Canal, which connects Lake Washington, Lake Union, and a sizable Alaskan fishing fleet to Puget Sound.  I’ve painted several weddings here, and my stepson and his wife had their reception here. The view from the dining hall is usually filled with boats queuing up to ascend the locks, and regularly includes both pleasure and commercial craft of many sizes. The view also includes a train bridge, and the sound of freight and Amtrak trains crossing adds ambience to the venue a couple of times an hour.

But the challenge for a wedding painter is to pair this amazing view with the one inside: the dance floor, the dinner, the spectacular bride and her lucky groom. So we have just a glimpse, at the right of the painting, out the south and west facing windows, to the bright, late sun reflecting on the water. The perspective is bent wide, more than 180 degrees, to the dinner on the far right. And, of course, the center of the painting focuses on the reason everyone came.

The couple — Wedding painting by Sam Day