This week has been hectic to the point of having to let something slide, and then ended up being the daily paintings. What painting I did was to finish a commission I’ve been working on for over a month now. Some commissions come with the idea and images laid out, making the whole process easy to get under way and complete. Others, like this one, require planning out the composition with the client, a more conceptual approach. There was a whole phase of trial sketches done for approval before the final composition was decided upon.
When you’re putting together a composite picture made up of several elements from a variety of sources, it takes quite a bit more effort to makes sure that they all work together, that light falls in the same direction and that the perspective is right.
This particular commission is to be a retirement present for a women who has worked for the last 30 years advocating and lobbying for children’s healthcare policy in Washington, D.C. for a national children’s health organization. The children are at play doing what healthy children do naturally, a tribute to her several decades of work on their behalf.