A friend of mine commissioned a painting from me. This made me super-duper excited. She asked me to paint something that shows the growth she's made in the last year, which is considerable, in whatever vision I have.
I started the project in the worst state of mind. I was thinking about what she would like, what she might want, what she was expecting, oh no! that might offend her boyfriend! And that wasn't working. I scrapped the first canvas and started over.
After really struggling with what I wanted to do, I was on the brink of gessoing over the canvases and starting a third time when I finally asked myself "What if a mutual friend said 'Why don't you paint a picture of how much she's been through in the last year?'" and I started again.
With that mind set, the paint flowed and the image was able to talk to me. I used a symbolism I saw when I was reading her story unfold via emails she sent to a group of us. And I used symbolic images I find in my own life.
Once I had it as close to done as I could get it, I let it sit in my living room so I could contemplate if anything needed to be changed. Nope, if I added to it, I would be forcing it and that would ruin what I had.
I'm sending it off to her today with hopes she'll love it. I've gotten to a place where I hang my paintings in my house and can say "Ah, I like to do it. I may be a terrible painter, but I don't care! It works for me." But creating something for someone about that deep a subject? This is scary, which means it's good for me to do it.
Will and I are going to the post office now.
Amanda's beauty tip of the day: If yiou are having issues with your skin and you have a product that works for you, regardless of what the reviews say. I use Oxy cleansing pads when my skin breaks out even though reviews say it's drying and irritating for my skin. It works for me, so I use them.
Sometimes, you have to give life some lipstick and tell it to kiss your ass.
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