Commissioned Montana Ranch Painting

I thought I would share a landscape painting that I just finished and delivered to the customer. This piece was commissioned by a family that owns property near Judith Gap in central Montana. The view is from their property looking toward the Big Snowy Mountains.

I really enjoy doing commissioned landscapes like this but they always pose a challenge. On one hand, my customer is hiring me to paint a picture of a specific scene and they expect the painting to be very recognizable. On the other hand, I want to create a piece that will hold up on its own, even to a viewer that isn’t familiar with the area. With most of my work, I have free reign to move things around (trees, mountains, etc.) to create a design that I feel works well for the painting. If something looks out of place, then I can just leave it out of the painting altogether. On a commissioned landscape like this, my hands are kind of tied because the painting has to represent reality. If I move a grove of trees to a new area, the customer would immediately notice that something wasn’t right. So, to solve that problem it takes a lot more effort on my part to come up with an interesting and pleasing design based on what nature has provided.

For this piece, I was lucky to be able to take a trip to the property to take a bunch of reference photos from several different vantage points. I also painted a small 8X10 study on location to capture some of the information the photos would most likely leave out. Once back in the studio, I was then able to evaluate many different ideas to come up with a painting design that looked nice and also met the customer’s requirements.

This was a beautiful view and I really enjoyed doing the painting. The mountains were stunning and the blooming wildflowers were an added bonus. Here’s the finished product:

Untitled – 18x24