Gilly Huber | Artist

Although painting commissions is nerve-wracking and hard work and not really what I want to be doing, I’m very grateful that people are coming to me and liking my style of work enough that they wish me to paint specifically for them. It does place my own ideas on the back-burner, but I’m happy that I’m given quite free rein with the commissions so my creative energy is still fuelled. And I wouldn’t paint a composition or subject that didn’t appeal to me in the first place.

The commission of three canvases depicting our tiny, native birds is an instance - it’s obvious that I love painting birds and I was asked to paint fairy wrens, silvereyes and honeyeaters, that was the only brief. So it’s been fun photographing the little creatures, deciding on backgrounds, and placing them in appropriate compositions of branches and leaves and woodland debris. I’ve almost completed the little silvereyes and had so much fun painting a very old, twisted grapevine trunk on which they were perched, with a surrounding complement of leaves in sun and shade - challenging and absorbing and my decision to paint.

In between, I’ve completed the three-person pastel portrait and now I’ll commence the Army portrait, which gives me a break from the oils which, I think, helps to keep me fresh.

I’m also grateful for the commissions because sales at exhibitions, for me,  have been very poor this past year. Commissions and private sales have kept me going as I’ve sold nothing at exhibition since last October. However, I’ve just sent off entries for three up-coming exhibitions and there’ll be two more small, local art group exhibitions in October, so fingers crossed that things will improve. Otherwise I’ll have to start pulling paintings out of frames and re-using the frames for new compositions. Artists always need something new to show but it gets expensive - materials, framing, entry fees, commission taken by exhibition, not to mention the time taken to produce the work. So when paintings don’t sell, it’s not only disappointing but a financial challenge as well.

Oh well, enough of being negative! Things have to improve! Or, maybe, I will! I am now making the resolution that I will only paint subjects that are of true importance to me, emotionally and creatively, and that they will be painted to the absolute utmost of my technical skill, even if they take a year or more to complete!!!! Maybe I’ve been too prolific and it’s made me rush to have paintings ready for this or that exhibition and ‘though I think the work has merit, perhaps my haste can too easily be seen. It is a certainty, however, that the paintings that I love the most and would dearly wish to keep, are always the ones that have sold!!! So the lesson is there to be learned!

I’ve also just been diagnosed with ‘advanced’ osteoarthritis in my thumbjoints, up near where the joint connects with the wrist bone. Oddly enough, worse on the left than the right and I’m right-handed. My doctor has suggested cortisone shots, but I don’t feel the pain is severe enough yet for those measures. I mostly feel it when I’m lifting something heavy, or vacuuming or ironing (chores I can easily ignore!) As yet, I only get twinges if I’ve been painting for a long time. I’ll have the shots if and when the pain increases. Maybe my painting style will eventually have to change a little, but as far as I’m concerned, I’ll never stop!

So, I’ll get back to it now. “Til the next time - keep those brushes loaded!