You never know. I have sometimes painted a picture for someone, who wanted something special, but never the size I did last month!
I came to know a Norwegian gentleman, who had been living and working for 15 years in Elche, a town close to Alicante/Costa Brava. He told me he still had a beautiful flat in Oslo, overlooking all the city of Oslo. He missed this fantastic view, when he was in Spain, so if I could paint it for him really big, 150 m x 1,00 m to hang it on the wall in his flat in Elche?
When he showed me the photo, the colors in it seemed rather dark and sad, because of the light in the photo. Immediately I saw this landscape very abstract with beautiful colours as you find them in pictures of Gauguin or Kirchner and other “Expressionists”. But did he want something like that???
In the end, I decided to stick to the photo, but use more lively colours like on a summer´s day. I sent Kai photos of the picture in progress and by his enthusiastic response I realized that my decision to paint a realistic picture had been right. Kai wanted to see “his” Oslo, not any fabulous landscape.
Any time I sent him photos I suggested I could change things, if he did not like them, but he always responded “It`s perfect, perfect!!” He gave me so much emotional support while painting!!
After more than a week of painting we met at the station of Alicante and he was so excited to have “his” picture.
When he sent me a photo of the picture hanging on the wall of his flat in Elche, I could not believe that I had worked on 1,50 m x 1,00m – it looked so small!!
