since i lost my job last month, i've been doing art commissions to help make ends meet. i haven't made art for money in years. it's been kind of emotional to go from being a top-of-my-game career woman to the basics of painting on pieces of cardboard for scraps of money. it's not near enough to pay the bills, but it's spirtually fulfilling and humbling. it makes me feel big and small all at once.
in the past, when i did commissions, it was largely cartoons and fanart. portraits and character designs, that sort of thing. i got ~$5-10/piece. but that was so long ago, and i'm not the artist i was when i was 20.
my first few commissions this time around were more or less the same. i went by the same pricing scale i set years ago (adjusted the tiniest bit for inflation) and offered the same fares i'd always offered. or at least, the type of art that people had always been willing to pay for from me. character designs averaging about $7/character. and that's great! i love doing lil character designs for a few bucks! it felt like a good niche for me.
unexpectedly, though, a girl i went to high school with paid me a flat amount to paint anything i wanted, as long as it included her cat. she paid me roughly twice as much as the highest prices listed with my commission info. i was so embarrassed and stressed out when i saw how much money she had given me. i felt like she was overestimating my abilities as an artist, and that i wouldn't be able to deliver something to her worth the amount of money she'd paid me. i prepared myself to disappoint her.
since i was given a lot of freedom to do what i wanted with the piece, i spent a lot of time at the front end drafting and sketching. gracie, my patron, had mentioned to me that she likes to edit photos of her cat to be in space, so i decided to run with that for my concept. her cat spike has this precious solid white coat, and gracie has beautiful naturally black hair and pale skin. gracie also has a sort of goth-y vibe and is often seen wearing all black, so i decided to lean into a yin/yang duality thing in the way i posed the two of them against the galaxy backdrop. i took the pose the sci-fi anime BLUE DROP. it's a reference to two characters who have a cosmic romance in which they're destined to keep meeting. i wanted the galaxy backdrop, the yin/yang symbolism, and the drama of the pose to create a sense that these two beings share a grand love that transcends time and space. because that's how gracie feels about spike, and how so many of us feel about our cats.
after painstakingly sketching out the concept and getting the draft approved by gracie, i went to start painting. and once the painting began, i found myself being brave and confident with the brush in ways i had never been before. i layered colors without thinking about why. i walked away when the canvas was oversaturated and i let it dry. when i didn't like the way the painting looked, i didn't panic. i took a break, and i came back to it, ready to re-shape the piece with new layers of paint. and by god, i had so much fun doing it.
a few months ago, i befriended a local artist who has actually been a bit of a hero of mine for over a decade. i followed her on social media way back when i was prepubescent and she had braces, and in the years since i've watched her transition from hobbyist to professional artist. her work has been majorly influential to me since i first picked up a pencil, and actually becoming her friend was NEVER something i imagined for myself. the first time i hung out with her at her house, we painted together. she let me use her fancy supplies, and she encouraged me as i tried new things and made mistakes.
and the best part is, i got to watch her paint!! i watched the sausage be made! realizing that she made just as many mistakes as i do, that she starts over and re-paints and takes breaks? it changed so much for me. as i excitedly told her a few days ago, the experience bridged the gap i had in my head between myself and Real Artists. and as i painted gracie and her darling spike, it became clear to me that this wasn't just a psychological hang-up i'd overcome. by sharing that time and space creating with another artist, i learned new techniques, and i actually became a better artist! this painting is DRIPPING with things both big and small that i picked up after watching my new friend paint. how incredible to get to bring that into my own work!
the glow in the dark stars happened because (1) i had them (2) i just watched WE'RE ALL GOING TO THE WORLD'S FAIR (3) a lot of my fave artists have been experimenting with elements of collage lately and i wanted to do it too!!! plus i thought it would add an element of whimsy to the painting, almost like the cosmic sky is something the two of them are imagining together but they’re actually in a cute lil bedroom playing pretend.
i love this painting so much, and i'm so grateful i got to make it for someone who has known me since well before i'd grown into the artist i am today!
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