Well, here's Roper, finished and hopefully pleasing the Wood family. If one chooses to do commissioned work, as I do oftentimes, one always has the knowledge that as an artist, you are painting to a memory. That can be really difficult, because you in your artist-mode look at the imagery supplied see the possibilities based upon your training and experience. Yet in the head of the people asking you to do this is a complex idea of what was, or what they remember, having changed what was to "fit" their own perceptions.
I enjoy doing commissions, because I believe my abilities lie in being able to get inside the source material, to find the real "life" in the animal (or person). So far, I've been either lucky, or people are too afraid of my reputation to come back and say, "Um, Elin, I hate to say this, but our beloved Pookie's eyes weren't crossed." But they'll always be a first time.
Maybe I get away with a lot because I'm such a loose painter. Artists whose work is needle tight tend to attract the jobs that we artists like to call "commissions from Hell", because the people like to see every freckle and hair in place. I'd never make it in those circles!
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