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Inside this lovely home the builder greeted us. The designer told him of the dilema. He said, “Well, since you are here let me see what you’ve got.” We walk to the kitchen and I open my portfolio and proceed to show my designs. He looked at the first three sample boards and said, “That’s enough.” I’m thinking, “No! I have so many more, there surely will be something you like. Oh well, it looks like I’m only doing one house in this Parade of Homes.“
The builder looked at designer and said, “Let her do anything she wants.” He walked away. Oh my garsh, I was shocked! The designer looks at me and asked if there was something we could do that would be totally different from the house next door.Looking at the draperies in the dining area I see beautiful flowers. Much more painterly than the fabric I had seen for the house next door. I said, “Absolutely, you’ll have one-of-a-kind.” Then I saw a picture in my mind of a bouquet with a gust of wind blowing some of the flowers up a staircase creating a border. She loved the idea and I love that I get pictures of paintings in my head. Now to my next meeting.
Do you see pictures in your mind’s eye while carrying on a conversation? Pay attention to them. Leave an example in the comment box of how your ideas usually come to you.
Continuing My Story . . .
After returning from Indianapolis I made calls on design firms in Fort Wayne which was much closer to where I lived. One designer asked if I would do some painting at a parade of home site. Showing me a fabric sample for draperies that were to be hung in the dining area of the Parade of Home, she said she would like to take the design from the draperies and do a similar design in the foyer. I’m thinking no problem and we scheduled a meeting for 10 A.M. next morning.
That evening I received a call from another designer from Fort Wayne asking if I would paint in a Parade of Home site for her. She said she wanted to pick up the design in the draperies in the dining area and do something in the foyer to tie the look together. The only time she had available was 9 A.M. Hmmmmm. Do you see where this is going?
The next day I drive to the Parade of Home site. The designer for my 9 A.M. appointment pulled up behind my car and asked if she could help carry my portfolio. Each of us holding a handle to my portfolio I looked up and noticed the number on the house we were entering was directly beside the house where my ten o’clock appointment was to be. Not a good feeling. Who would have guessed they would be next to each other?
Not knowing how I was going to handle this, I decided to tell her about the other house. She stopped dead in her tracks. (I’m thinking I really blew this one.) She said, “Well, the builder didn’t want to do this anyway, I talked him into it. Since we’re here, let’s go in.” Can you imagine what my stomach feels like at this point?!? Any idea what happens next?
Tomorrow I will back talking about “My Voyage to Painting Murals, again.” Today I thought I would interject a fun little painting project. Earlier today I met with a potential client and wanted to refer her to my website to see this room but realized I hadn’t posted photos to my website yet.
Jenny was seven years old and she wasn’t crazy about her family’s upcoming move to their new home. Her mother called me to talk about a mural for Jenny’s new room, something to make her new space feel special.
When I met with them I asked if I might speak with Jenny, alone. Her mother was fine with this. We chatted a bit and I asked Jenny what some of her favorite things were. She had no problem telling me that she liked daisies, blue birds, butterflies, fairies, turtles, mushrooms and pears.
My mind was going a mile a minute until she said, “pears”. Hmmmm, well we finished talking and off I went to do some sketching wondering how I was going to fit pears into the equation I had going on in my head.
This is a portion of Jenny’s mural measuring ten feet tall and eight foot wide, total mural was about 16 feet wide. Did you see something totally different in your mind’s eye? Let me know what your thoughts are.
After learning that lesson there was no way I would drive that far without more than one appointment. After the first presentation I was hired to paint the Jane Tillery’s showroom, subsequently customers asked if they could have their homes hand painted. This was Indiana and I wasn’t aware of anyone hand painting walls at that time.
The next design firm appointment was even more encouraging. The designer suggested other firms he thought would be open to what I was doing/going to do. He called ahead to a large commercial firm so I could stop by on my way home to make an appointment. It never entered my mind that some firms wouldn’t talk to you without a referral. Another lesson.What kind of lessons have you learned while getting your business off the ground?
My instructors reaction to my painting was encouraging enough that I made those cold calls that most of hate so much. The town I lived in was very small and I felt this idea would be better suited to a large city. The city I chose was one hundred miles from me but my gut feeling was it would be a better fit. Being very young I didn’t know protocal for making appointments. After a few more designs in my portfolio I checked the yellow pages and drove to a large design firm in Indianapolis. My thought was that a large firm would have a larger and perhaps a higher end clientele. I wanted to start at the top.
Jane Tillery not only had a beautiful design studio with furniture and accessaries but it was her own little strip mall with a paint center, wallpaper area and other related stores. Dressed in my suit and heels I approached the assistant asking if I could have a few minutes of her time. She didn’t understand what I was wanting so she checked out a few of my designs and scheduled me for two weeks later. Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh, an hour and a half drive and I had to make an appointment. A lesson learned. Have you had a similar experience? Tell me about it.
As you can see, at this point I was too driven to be side-tracked. It didn’t seem ethical to work for the shop owner/instructor for a short period of time and then leave. So I told her that I didn’t take her class because I wanted to do floral arranging.
With an incredulous look on her face she asked why I had taken the class. I’m sure she thought me crazed when I told her of the borders I wanted to paint in homes and businesses. She didn’t understand and asked that I bring samples to class.
The last class I brought my fourteen samples to show my instructor. Two designs per board with the beveled-cut matting above, between and below the designs. After the other students had left I showed her my samples. She smiled, looked at me and said, “Oh Honey, you don’t want to work for me. You need to paint.” Being an artist herself, she understood the importance of following your heart. In what ways are you following your heart? Leave a comment below if you would like to share. Your questions are always welcomed as well.
Florals, by far, were my favorite subject matter. Painting on smaller objects like vases, plates, etc., I had been lucky in that I could look at photos in magazines of floral arrangements and paint something similar. Painting on walls with the design being very linear would be more challenging for me.
Going to college for art classes was not in my budget. Instead I signed up for a flower arranging class and an interior design class at a near-by community college. Two nights a week for a several months I could handle.
The flower arranging class was intense and I learned a lot. The missing link for my painting was composition. A few of the things I learned were to work in odd numbers until there were over seven, it takes about seven yards of ribbon to make a big loopy bow (I still used this for making bows for gifts and my Christmas tree.), ways to balance an asymmetrical design, fun stuff.
After class one evening the instructor asked if I could stay for a few minutes. It seems she was interested in hiring me. She told me that she would send me to Holland to learn new techniques. Upon returning I would teach the new techniques to the other emplyees. I cannot tell you how much I would have loved to have gone to Holland. All those wonderful flowers. Can you imagine how tempting that was?
Not being easily discouraged I returned home, pulled out illustration board and started painting borders. At the time I was working sixty hours a week at a “real job” and teaching two night a week. My energy soared. After dinner ever evening I was in my studio painting samples. Do you have this happen when new ideas are flooding your head?
Coming up with designs was invigorating. There had to be a way to turn this into a business. One I could actually make money at. Off I went to a local frame shop to have beveled edged strips of matting cut to frame my designs. They needed to look professional. Guess I was coloring outside of the box long before I began using the term. The only way I new to market myself with no budget was to make cold calls on design firms, but something was missing.
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- Sample Borders 3
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- Border Sample 1
My life as a freelance artist has been quite a voyage. From teaching freehand design on ceramics and porcelain to painting custom murals for five-star resorts. Although I continue to do some of these very same things my latest voyage is taking me in the direction of marketing a line of fine art, greeting cards and bookmarks.
It truly brings joy to my life to share the beauty I find in nature through my art. My voyage has not been as smooth as I sometimes would like but if nothing else, it has been interesting and truly fulfilling. Hold on here we go again but first let me share my story of how I came to paint murals.
In the eighties I had been teaching classes in my ceramic studio for about ten years. The earge to paint on larger and larger surfaces was insistant. While reading a magazine I saw an ad for Jackie Shaw’s tole painting class. Not having painted on wood, metal or fabric much I decided to sign up, thinking I would just be learning new techniques I could then teach.
At Jackie’s Old Stone Mill, turned beautiful studio, she could sleep twenty-one students. The students were from all over the United States and Canada. Never having taken classes of this size, I thought I had died and gone to heaven. 
What made Jackie’s huge studio so facinating to me were the walls she had hand painted. In particular one of the bedroom on the lower level. She had painted a border of Rosemaling that thoughouly intregued me. A beautiful free-flowing design in colors of peach, brown, black and white. I asked her how long it had taken her to paint and was told it took so long that she would never do another. Would that statement have discouraged you from trying it yourself?
