Chapter 27
Chapter Twenty-Seven
F rankie realized she hadn’t asked her sister if she minded Frankie turning the office into a painting studio. Frankie stopped what she was doing. There was no sense in setting everything up just to have Harper veto the idea.
Which was completely within her rights. This was her house. And oil painting was not the neatest of endeavors.
Frankie thought twice about making the office her painting space. She’d be better off setting up downstairs in the rec room. She could put a tarp down and set the new easel there, make that her work space. With all those windows, the light was great. Even better than it was in the office.
Just then she heard the door open. Harper had returned from the guest house. Frankie stuck her head out into the hall. “Just the person I wanted to see.”
Harper stopped. “What’s up?”
“I sort of assumed I was going to paint in here, but that’s probably not the best idea, is it? I mean, I don’t want to damage anything in here. Oil paint is no joke to clean off. As long as you’re all right with it, I’m going to set up downstairs in the rec room. Probably in front of that big section of windows where the light is strongest. I’ll put a tarp down, too.”
Harper shrugged. “I really hadn’t thought about it. Are you a messy painter?”
“I don’t intend to be, but things happen. It’s better if I go downstairs.”
“Fine with me. I appreciate that you’re being careful. I’m pretty sure there are some tarps on one of the shelves in the garage. I don’t think they’ve even been used. If I remember right, some of them were still in the packaging.”
“Perfect. I’ll have a look.” Frankie followed Harper down the hall, but when Harper turned into the kitchen, Frankie kept going down the steps. Working downstairs wasn’t the original plan, but the more she thought about it, the more it made sense.
The downstairs was spacious, had plenty of natural light, and was quieter. It had a bathroom, a small kitchenette, everything she needed, really. And if she had to go to the third floor for anything, there was always the elevator.
She checked the garage where the golf cart was and found the tarps on the shelf. Two were thick blue plastic, but next to them were some cheaper, clear plastic ones. She grabbed those, a little worried that the bright blue ones might reflect some color onto her canvas and throw her perception off.
She laid one of the plastic sheets down in the corner where she planned to work. It was so big she doubled it and still had a lot of coverage. Then she brought over two of the snack trays from the bar area and set them up as a table for her supplies, covering them with another of the plastic sheets.
Now all she had to do was bring her paints and such down here, set up her easel with a canvas, and she could get to work.
She took the stairs back to the second floor and collected her bags from the office. She’d need one more trip for her laptop and tablet. And maybe those noise-cancelling headphones. If she was going to work on the first floor, she might as well take everything down there. Then she could check emails or whatever if she needed a break.
In about half an hour, she was ready to go. All of her supplies were organized on the two snack tables she’d put together. She had the easel set up, a canvas on it, and she’d brought a barstool over for a seat. She covered it with one of the older beach towels, just in case.
She wouldn’t be sitting just yet, however. First, she had to prep the canvas.
She covered the edges of the canvas with artist tape so when she was done with the portrait, she could peel it off and have nice, clean sides. Once that was done, she wiped the canvas down with alcohol, just to be sure it was clean.
When that was dry, which only took a few seconds, she applied a thin coat of gesso to the entire surface in long, even strokes. She closed the container and went to wash out the brush. It would take a while for that to dry. At least two hours, she estimated. Maybe more with the humidity. Then she’d add another coat. If the canvas still felt rough, she’d do a third.
She settled onto the couch with her laptop and checked emails. She realized now would be a great time to chat with Allan about his science-fiction book covers. She shot him a quick email, telling him she was available and giving him her phone number.
After hitting Send, she went on to Stacy’s response on the T-shirt designs. Frankie smiled as she read Stacy’s words. She’d like them all but numbers one, three, four, and five were her favorites. She wanted those four, and only had changes on two of them. The changes were simple fixes. She wanted the colors brighter on number three and on number four, she wanted more blue and green.
Frankie went to work on those immediately and was nearly done with them when her phone rang. “Hello?”
“Ms. Vaughn? This is Allan. Westmore.”
“Nice to talk to you, Allan. Please, call me Frankie. I’m interested in hearing more about these covers you’re after.”
He talked at length for several minutes about the story and the characters, giving her a lot more detail than she needed but she loved his enthusiasm. While he spoke, she did a quick search for him on Amazon.
He had two book series out already. They had a lot of good reviews. Her work would be seen by a lot of people if this happened. She wanted this job. When he took a breath, she interjected, “You seem to be a pretty popular author.”
He hemmed and hawed a little. “I do all right. I’m lucky that my fan base is loyal, but I’d like to expand it. Sci-fi is a popular genre, but it can be hard to stand out. That’s why I’m trying to go a different route with my covers.”
She looked at his existing covers. They were pretty typical. Lots of dark space scattered with stars, a spaceship front and center, maybe a planet in the background. In several there was a fleet of small spacecraft in the distance. “Can you send me the titles and blurbs for this new series? Or at least for the first book?”
“Sure. Do you have some ideas?”
“I do but I need to ask a few questions. How much do you want to stand out?”
“Well…the books need to be recognizable as sci-fi, but they need to pop, too. I want them to be eye-catching. To possibly appeal to someone who wouldn’t necessarily read sci-fi. I guess that doesn’t really help.”
“No, it does. How do you feel about color?”
“I like it, I guess.”
“Right now, your covers don’t have a lot of color. They’re kind of dark, actually. That seems fairly standard, but I believe it’s possible to do sci-fi with color. Maybe once you send the title and blurb, I could mock something up, see what you think of it?”
“Okay, yeah, that would be good.”
“I have a small window of availability at the moment. I’ve just started a new portrait, and it’s going to take quite a bit of time, but in between some of the prep, I can probably get you a sample of what I mean.”
“Is the portrait of Stacy’s cats?”
Frankie chuckled. “No, it’s actually a portrait of Arlington Marsh. Do you know who that is?”
“Heck, yes. He was the Doomsday Oracle in the Blackstone Detective Agency series. He was a total boss on that show. Did someone commission you to do that or are you doing it for fun?”
Frankie rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. Like she had time to do portraits in oil for fun. “His son commissioned it, actually.” Okay, so she was sort of name-dropping, but she had a feeling that Allan needed a little impressing.
“For real?”
“For real.”
“Wow. Okay, listen, I would love to see what you come up with. You sound busy, though. What’s your schedule like for getting these done?”
“When do you need these covers?”
“You know how it is. The sooner I can get them up for preorder, the more sales I can gather. Could you have the first one for me in a month?”
Frankie smiled. “If you like my idea, that shouldn’t be a problem. Do you want typography, too?”
“You mean the title and author name?”
“Yes.”
“Yeah, I want a complete cover.”
“Okay. Still very doable. In addition to the title and blurb, I’d like you to send me two existing covers you like, and two you don’t.” Giving him a little homework would give him some skin in the game. Make him feel like a bigger part of the process. It was a technique she’d used with her students.
“I can do that. I’ll get all of that sent to you as soon as possible.”
“Great. Once I send you the mockup and you decide you want to proceed, I’ll need a deposit.”
One of the things she’d recently worked on was updating her prices on her website. She’d researched what other custom illustrators charged for things such as book covers, album covers, etcetera. She’d decided to charge eight hundred dollars for an original book cover with a ten percent discount on covers in a series.
“Have you had a chance to look at the pricing on my website?”
“Yeah, I did. You’re not cheap but you’re not the most expensive, either. Plus I know I’m asking for custom artwork. So I get it. I don’t have a problem paying for great covers with great art. The right cover will sell more books, so it’s an investment.”
She smiled. “I’ll wait for you to send me those things, then.”
“Um, one more question. If I send you a deposit now, would that guarantee my place in your schedule? I’m just a little concerned that you might get another commission and I don’t want to get pushed back.”
“It would. Do you want me to send you an invoice, then?”
“Yeah, go ahead. Stacy had great things to say about you and the logo you did for her was pretty sweet.”
“Thank you. I’ll get that invoice right out to you. Good talking to you.”
“You, too.”
She hung up and jotted a few notes down on a new Word doc she’d opened up while speaking to him. She saved the document under his name. Then she created an invoice for three book covers, used the calculator app on her phone to make sure she got the series discount right, and sent the invoice to him.
Once that was done, she finished the changes for Stacy and sent them back to her. Frankie smiled the whole time. It was good to be busy.
Since Stacy hadn’t wanted the second T-shirt design of the five Frankie had created, that meant it was available for Frankie to use. The design was a crown of flowers over the word Lucky done in a fancy script font.
Frankie changed the palette from desert earth tones to mint green, turquoise, and cobalt blue, added touches of gold, a few sparkles on the crown, and quickly sketched in some jewels along the crown’s band.
She swapped the font for a curvier, more informal script and made it slightly bigger. She shook her head as she looked at, suddenly erasing the word Lucky and changing it out for Blessed. She smiled. That was better.
Because that’s what she was. This life that was unfolding in front of her? That wasn’t luck. She was being blessed. With great friends and great family and great opportunities.
There was no other explanation.