My brother reached out to me the other day via text. “Do you do commission work?”
I replied, “Yes I do.”
It was early November and he wanted me to do a watercolor painting of their three dogs as a surprise Christmas gift for his wife. “Can you paint a picture of PJ, Vinnie, and Camo?”
I love doing commission work so I said, “Absolutely!” I had a couple other projects that I was working on, but there was no way I could say no.
As a reference, he sent me a photo of the dogs sitting on their back porch. It was a cool picture, but the dogs were looking away from the camera. I was hoping to get a shot of them looking straight ahead. This image wasn’t going to work.
Fortunately for me, his wife posts lots of pics of their dogs on her Facebook page, so I was able to find a few that I thought would work. Here are the pics I decided to use.
I arranged the photos a few different ways, and finally settled on this arrangement: Vinnie on the left, Camo top middle, and PJ on the right. I did a few preliminary sketches and was ready to paint.
I started with Vinnie. PJ was next. And I finished with Camo. I have to admit that during this process I was worried that I would mess up one of the dogs. And then what? Start over? You can’t just paint over watercolor and do it again like you can with acrylics. You literally have to start over.
Fortunately I didn’t have to. (Whew!) I was very pleased with how each of the dogs turned out. It was a fun project and I really enjoyed painting it.
Once it was finished, I sent him a photo of the painting to make sure he approved.
I was going to ship the painting to him, but since our family was getting together for Thanksgiving, I decided to hand deliver it instead. Before Thanksgiving dinner, I pulled him aside and told him I had the painting out in my car. I could tell by the expression on his face that he was eager to get it.
After dinner, when no one was paying attention, we sneaked out into the driveway. I got the painting from the trunk of my car. It was wrapped in brown paper and packing tape (just in case anyone was snooping). He hid it behind some boxes in the bed of his pickup and told me once they got home, he would hide it somewhere in his house until Christmas.
Later Thanksgiving night (after he and his wife got home), I got a message from his wife thanking me for the wonderful painting of their dogs!
He was planning to wait until Christmas. He couldn’t even wait until Thanksgiving was over! I have to admit, that made me fell pretty good.