Portrait Finally Completed! Kind of.....Another Lesson Learned by an Old New Artist

Well, here's the final portrait of Yvonne, completed two months earlier than requested. I would have liked to fuss with it more, but Yvonne's widower was leaving Florida to go to his son's home in New Hampshire, and wanted to take it with him....

Here is the problem with letting people see a portrait before it is finished....

Either they don't understand that the painting is "not done yet" and they hate it.... or they "Love it as it is" and don't understand how much better it can be if they let you have more time to finish it. 

If your client hates the painting, you don't want to invest more time working on it. You can't sell people on something that is in your imagination. I find it easiest to back off, saying "I guess that is one thing I am just not good at painting.... So sorry." 

If the client "loves" the painting "as is", I used to think that was a problem. Now I realize that if the person who has consigned the painting loves it, and tears of joy well up in their eyes, the painting IS "done".

The mission in painting for a client is to bring them joy through the painting. It does not have to be a masterpiece to the artist, it only has to be a masterpiece to the client!

In the case of Yvonne's portrait, having another two months to make final adjustments and refinements would have made it a better painting. To me, that is... I don't know if the refinements would have made a difference to Henry.

Once Henry saw the painting (my mistake), he fell in love with it! I didn't even have the hands drawn in, but he wanted it less than a week to take to his son, in New Hampshire.

So I rushed painting the arms and hands, and slapped the painting into one of my own frames that he wanted... 30 minutes before he walked into the door to take it.... He was a very happy man as he left posessing the portrait of the woman he fell in love with fifty years ago.

So I learned a lesson. Maybe I have to get "over" thinking I am a Vermeer, and should stop trying to create masterpieces. Doing everything to the finest detail makes me crazy at times, and that is not what creating art should be about. A portrait should make a client happy.... end of story!

I will always try to be better, but I am not going to try to force "better" any more. There is a fine line between putting in effort to improve oneself, and trying to reach unrealistic goals in one big jump.

OK, if people are thrilled with a painting at a certain stage, it's their painting, and I have learned now to let it go, then....

So, for someone who just started to paint at age 62, I guess I have more to learn than just how to work with those paints!

Always be willing to learn, like that Wild Old Lady, who now has to go into her studio to clean it up! :)