I Think It Is Done

As you can see, I got back into the commissioned painting today (see yesterday's post below for a "before" picture). I worked in more translucent layers of color mixed with a glazing medium applied with a dry brush. A lot got scrubbed off with my hands or scratched at with the ends of brushes and my fingers. I'm happy with the more layered effects of color and texture now.

This was an interesting experience, and GREAT first painting to do in the studio. It came with new challenges, and therefore new learned techniques and observations. I've done commissioned paintings based on previous works before but there were differences. For example, one was a large, painted canvas based on an ink drawing. The drawing was translated first onto the canvas, then after that, the painting took on it's own life. Another commission was for two large canvases in the style of one of my paintings called Ribbon Candy. Again, translating to such a huge scale based on an 8" x 10" concept took on it's own life, too. One more story (not to bore you here) was when I recreated Freedom for a commission. That was a drip painting, so there was only the decisions of what colors to mix and where to swipe my wide, wet brush that I had control over.

This time I had a print out of the original painting in front of me and I referred to it the whole way through. At one point I asked myself if this was even what the client wanted, but I knew that she was open to whatever the painting "became" so I went with my gut and kept looking.... and attempting to recreate. By last night I was pretty close to the original but that spark was missing. Today I came in and responded to the painting in front of me more than the printout. I let each space speak for itself - maybe it needed more green, or to merge with the "box" next to it - in each case I let those moments either be or change based on instinct, not what was in the original, which was what needed to happen to make this painting come alive. At least I think so,,, what do you think?