Creating Peace of Mine

Peace of Mine

This was a challenging piece.  Someone contacted me about a piece I had for sale that they liked but wished it had a different background color. I offered to do an original for the same price and they accepted.  The challenge came in the form of time constraints. They needed the piece about a week from that day.  Sometimes there are unforeseen snags when painting and similarly there are unforeseen snags that happen in life, which is why i usually tell people 2 weeks for a custom.  That allows time for life to happen, the piece to come into it’s own and allow for drying time.

I waded through Atlanta traffic the next day to find the correct canvas and got to work.  Thankfully I remembered how to paint that day (sometimes I don’t). I laid down the under-painting with acrylic, waited about an hour and started in with oil.  I used Japanese Dryer to speed the drying process and thankfully didn’t run into any major placement issues (1 eye too high, lips crooked, etc.), it happens to the best of us. I was able to power through the painting pretty quickly.  I had picked out a reference image but I didn’t feel obligated to stick to it, just needed it for general layout of the face and shadows.

The hair was the tricky part, I knew I need to lay down alot of paint to thicken it up but drying time was a worry even with the Japanese Dryer.  Pro tip: I found a vent in my house to hang the painting under between sessions and that seemed to help.  I layered the paint, making sure the layer before was mostly dry before adding another. This allowed me to sculpt the hair and I am pretty happy with how it came out.

I actually finished the piece with 2 days to spare before shipping, allowing it ample time to dry….and time for me to hunt down a box to ship in.  That’s a whole other adventure involving multiple stores and a dumpster.  Anywho I got the piece in the mail and even though i had been providing the buyer pics along the process I’m always curious how they’ll like the real piece.

My painting came today and it is strong, powerful, yet sexy and demure. I love love it. Thank you!

It’s comments like that that keep me going. That and the fact they want another painting and I was commissioned for another piece based on this piece for someone else lol.

Back to it……