I have that “it’s been over a month since my last post” guilt. It’s been one of those months that I have not slowed down at all and it has shown in many ways. It really caught up to me with my commissions recently. I am truly lucky in that when I get close to being finished with a commission and send a “semi-final” picture to a client I am usually met with a great response without many “corrections.” I do, of course, insist that each client be 100% happy with the piece he or she commissions and am willing and prepared to make any and all updates to make sure that the artwork (usually of a beloved pet) is everything that the client hoped for.
Recently I have had to make many alterations and corrections and I started to become a little frustrated with myself (NOT with clients) for what seemed to be a lack of initial success with some commissions (each commission has now been finished and the clients are 100% happy thank goodness!). I finally slowed down enough to ask myself what I’ve been doing differently lately. The answer is that I was not taking the time to put the painting across the room and soak it in during the process. I wasn’t taking the time to spend quality time with the paintings aside from frantically working on them. For me, part of the process was always sitting back and hitting pause. I took that element out in my frenzy and it ultimately created even more frenzy. What a great lesson for me with art and life. I guess I was reminded that when it seems that “pause” is the easiest button to take away it can really throw a whole system out of whack. I am thankful to my sweet husband with his incredible eye for detail and for his willingness to hit his pause button to help me critique. His eye always comes in handy but for this round of Christmas commissions his eye really saved the day (and what sanity I have left!). Here’s to hitting pause during this Christmas season and every season and taking time to love those dear to us and taking the time to be thankful for our many many blessings…
Hit pause if you would like. Can you see that the right window is tilted down a bit?
Ahhh… much better (except for the glare in my photography in this pic; the real final pic is on Jason’s camera). 🙂
Here is sweet Quita. Don’t look for anything wrong (we worked out the kinks prior to this picture! :)). I did wrestle with this cute little thing for a little while as adorable white balls of fur can be a bit challenging. Her sweet eyes just made me melt while I painted her nonetheless.
