An Original Sold, and Sometimes Customers Have the Darnedest Ideas

Geraniums and Parsley (uncropped), watercolor, 6 x 9 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

Geraniums and Parsley (uncropped), watercolor, 6 x 9 © Bernadette E. Kazmarski

I love this painting, and I was determined it would only go to the most loving home. Three years later, finally, it did! And in a very interesting circumstance.

A longtime friend and customer has commissioned a number of portraits for herself and to give to friends as well as purchased several original pieces of artwork, plus, she rescues cats, and was one of the first people I met in cat rescue years ago. On moving to a retirement community from a condo, she called to say she was interested in one of my paintings, “Geraniums and Parsley”. She loved the colors and contrasts, the abstractions and just the general feeling of joy in the painting.

I would be absolutely thrilled if she bought that painting, in no small part because those are all the right reasons! But when she found out it was only 6 x 9 in a 9 x 12 frame, she told me she wanted it to fill the wall over her couch because she wanted it to bring life to the room. And she asked how big of a print I could make.

People often ask about enlarging paintings, and it would rarely work out well for a 6 x 9 painting to be enlarged enough to fill over a couch when framed. Often people don’t notice the distortion when a painting is enlarged to the point it looks abstract, or it’s blurry or pixelated, but I do.

But she was sincere, and I knew that, and she wouldn’t accept a bad print. I had made a very high-resolution scan of the painting to be sure that all my future prints would be excellent, and I would guess I could go as large as 16 x 20. I told her that, and told her I would check with the person who makes my giclee prints, because they can print up to 6 feet wide by 60 feet long! I sent the file and he told me it could enlarge up to 20 x 30 which would not only work perfectly to fill the space, but was exactly the same size as the other large painting she had for another area of the room.

But the painting was vertical, and the space above the couch was, of course, horizontal.  She’d have to have a couple of smaller pieces next to it to balance, or a tall lamp or something. Unless…

…you turned it sideways.

Geraniums and Parsley, sideways

And it worked! We experimented with the small original first. This is a little disorienting for me because not only did I paint the thing, but it’s right outside my back door. I had to walk away and blink a few times, but when I looked back, there it was! And you can see by the scale with her hand how big it actually is.

And the original? The interior designer she had working with her loved Geraniums and Parsley as soon as she saw it, and she told my friend she wanted to buy it, so she did.

This was so fun and happy, I wish I had more experiences like this one.

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