A First

Since I paint 3D trees, I've decided to try something a little different and try to sell Family Tree(s) paintings.  As part of my journey into making art to give and sell to other people (as opposed to simply hanging it all up in our home), a good friend of mine asked me to make her husband a painting of their Family Tree(s) for Christmas.   So, we went shopping for a canvas and some paint colors and then I came home and tackled my very first (and very large) "commissioned" piece (I gifted my time on the painting as my Christmas gift to her and she purchased all of the supplies).  Just the fact that she asked me to create this for her and her family was an amazing honor!  Honestly, it was also a bit stressful (I am absolutely a perfectionist).

This was quite an intense process and took way longer than I imagined it might (I'm guessing it took about 40 hours total).  It's 30 inches wide X 40 inches tall, and had to be laid flat on our dining room table for the majority of it's creation, which made for lots of hours of bending over which meant a sore back on many a night.  At one point (at the end of a very long day) I was ready to throw the towel in (it was probably about 75% done, but man, was I tired!), but after a good nights sleep, I pulled it together and carried on.

However, even with all of the stress of this creation, I wound up being very happy with the end result.  The pictures don't really do it justice, but the colors came out beautifully and behind the leaves are layers of gold which shine brilliantly when the light hits them (there is also gold on the ridges of the trunks...they just show up funny in these pics, too.  Stinkin' camera!).

The greatest moment, though, was my friends reaction when she saw it!  She was so happy!  And when she showed it to her husband, I dare say he almost cried.

Now, with all the creating of the holidays behind me, a new year full of promise ahead of me and lots of ideas swirling in my head, I'm very excited to begin creating more items for my little Etsy shop.