I spent the end of 2020 painting a couple projects for other folks. I have to admit, painting for other people is really rather stressful for me. And it still always feels awkward to me to take money for a painting... how do you put a value on something you enjoy doing, that you do for free anyway, or that you don't know if anyone else will even like? Then again, it's still such an electrifying thrill when someone actually wants to pay me for a painting.
I do find that it's not quite as stressful when I'm close to the people I'm painting for. My son asked for a painting of his cat. The photo he sent just looked like this cat needed a stiff drink. So that's what I painted. It was one of those paintings that just slid right onto the canvas for me, which doesn't happen very often, so that was nice.
Then a friend from work asked if I would paint a portrait of his wife's favorite roosters.
I do love painting chickens. He said I could get as creative and off the wall as I wanted, so that made it less stressful.
Here's the sketch I sent. It really turned out to be a lot of fun to paint. I wanted to do something bright and surreal, featuring the gold paint I've been enjoying playing with. Chickens often seem so cartoony to me. These beloved boys I wanted to show off on velvet pillowed pedestals... it came out looking like an old sideshow banner, I think. It was fun... I'm thinking of some more chicken paintings for this year!
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