Stepping back

Stepping back
I love the path there...

Wow, I’ve painted two days in a row. And blogged both days. Someone mark the calendar.

Unfortunately, I’m still on “stealth projects” so I don’t have much to show. Instead, I will explain a decision I’ve been coming to for a while as I show you random pictures from my cell phone that I claim one day will be paintings.

As this is from an i-phone, I’m not sure anyone can see how great the shadows were. But they were cool enough that I contemplated doing a landscape with buildings…

The end of pet portrait commissions

The decision to step back from pet commissions has been coming for a while.

While I enjoy painting pictures of animals, having to do it to meet the tastes of other people is sort of dragging me down. All joking aside, this project was a difficult one for me. Another project I have has been ongoing for over two years because I am so stuck. I finally just restarted it, which is something I don’t like doing.

My painting time is limited and I feel like this is something I can take off my plate (after I get done with my current load.) If I was painting for a living, it would be different, but there is really no point in having a job that interferes so much with my painting time if I have to treat painting as something to please someone else.

Also… the deadlines are killing me.

The final straw came recently when I did not get paid for a commission. It was a friend and someone I thought would honor her word. When it became obvious that she had taken the painting and “ran”, it made me wonder if the small amount of monetary reward was really worth it. (Also, I don’t think I have to go into how hard this “friend’s” actions were to deal with personally.)

I can still do gifts or spontaneous paintings, but right now I’m stepping back from commissions.

 

To detract from the trauma of this announcement (wait, only I’m traumatized…?) here are more photos that I claim might become paintings.