And more blessings keep coming! Since posting “Rocky Boy” to Facebook, two friends I used to work with at Disney World have requested their own commissions. I love it, and I’m grateful people love their animals so much. 🙂 Unfortunately where we live right now, pets aren’t allowed, so this gives me an awesome opportunity to feel like I have some pooches around!
The first commission request I received was a great surprise. It was fun discussing what kind of final product Koda’s owner wanted without having seen Koda at all, leaving me wondering what kind of pup I’d get to work on. Ah, but when I finally received this pic, I was relieved and excited. What a cutie!!
“Koda” Original
Instead of a painting, Koda’s dad wanted a black and white drawing. Definitely a less expensive choice since it’s going to be shipped well across the U.S.! I chose to go with a sturdy 16×20 piece of Canson art board and dig out my charcoal pencils and stumps. I’m definitely a little rusty on these. Don’t think I’ve shaded like this since my Sophomore year of college (which, hey, wasn’t THAT long ago), but it’s so fun to jump back into using this medium.
The first thing I did was edit the photo to a Black and White copy and print it out for reference. So the progress goes something like this:
“Koda” Outline
“Koda” Face
“Koda”
And the final product (though I’m always tempted to do more, so this might continue to evolve a little before I send him off):
“Koda” Final (WM)
I’m really happy with the way Koda looks. From what I’ve heard, his owner is pretty thrilled, too, which is really what it’s ALL about. I think an artist’s true mantra has to be “Happy Customer, Happy Life.” As long as my art is making people smile, I’m content. 🙂
I just HAVE to share this exciting development with you all! I promise I won’t use this blog to plug products often, but when something this good and uplifting comes along, it must be shared. As I’ve mentioned, my husband and I are expecting our first little bundle of giggling joy very soon. Being the researcher I am, I’ve been doing lots of investigations on all things baby, including the great diapering debates: disposable or cloth? Thankfully, both my husband and I are very middle-of-the-road people. On pretty much every issue, I can see the pros and cons to either side and don’t feel that anyone has the right to tell another person what they have to do with their kid in order to be a good parent. It’s ridiculous how angry, self-righteous, and judgmental anyone can get about parenting methods (even if they’ve never been a parent!)… but I digress. The short of it is that diapering-wise, we’ve chosen to do a little of both.
In my search for the best cloth diaper brands, I came across a boat-load of information. It’s overwhelming how many brands are out there and even more confusing trying to figure out if you should buy microfiber, hemp, bamboo. I mean, there are cloth diaper glossaries out there because the process truly has its own language. But in the midst of trying to sift through all the info, I discovered a product and a mission that I can totally get behind.
Enter The Little Bee Co. Just one visit to their website and I was hooked. Not only do they make cloth diapers, which are obviously environmentally friendly, but here’s the kicker: for EVERY diaper I buy from them, a second diaper is shipped to an orphan in need. They’ve partnered with orphanages all over the world, and once they get enough orders to provide a diaper for each orphan within a given orphanage, they do a “diaper drop” for those precious children.
So here’s where I got even more stoked about all of this. After finishing “Rocky Boy” and turning him over to my friend who had commissioned him, I realized I never really set a price for the painting. Really, I am an artist and not a businesswoman. I told her I’d lower the price for her since I handled the situation poorly and she was a good friend and all, but she replied and said she’d actually been expecting to pay about twice as much, the original price I had wanted for him. So I came up with what I think was a pretty sweet solution. If she was willing to pay the full amount she offered, I would promise to devote all of that money to getting the Little Bee Co. diapers I had been looking to buy. That way, she knew that her money was going to not only cover my precious bambino’s buns, but she would also be using her money to cover precious little buns around the world! I don’t think it gets better than that. She was thrilled with the idea, and that plan is just what happened.
The Little Bee Co. Package
After receiving her check, I put in my order. I just received my package of The Little Bee Co. diapers today, and I was SO thrilled to open the box!
The Little Bee Co. Diapers
These things are dang cute. Not only are the colors really pretty, but each color is selected to represent a group of needy orphans around the world. Check out this page of their website that describes the significance of each one. How cool is that?
All in all, I’m really excited to have been able to use the money for my art in this way, and I want to keep finding ways to do this. Of course, I can’t just keep buying diapers with everything I make. One kid can only make so much mess. 😉 But this is definitely an awesome start. If anyone has other ideas of companies that I could partner with like this one, please leave me a reply and let me know!
I’ve been wanting to post my progress on this commission, but it’s definitely bad form to post the work before the commissioner sees the final product! A great friend wanted a piece to capture her beloved and hairy best friend, and I was more than happy to give it a go. I always welcome the challenge to step outside of my cartooning box and see what I can do. However, that usually means a longer-than-normal process. Because I’m not totally confident of my skills, I often start into a work like this and do exactly what I did this time around – I work on bits and pieces pretty steadily, and then I abandon the project for a while because I don’t want to ruin what I’ve done. “Creativity takes courage” (thanks, Henri Matisse), and sometimes my courage-o-meter gets pretty low.
I did most of my foundational work for this project back in October and November, then I went on hiatus over the holidays and had major trouble wanting to jump back in. But when my friend text me about him in late January, I decided it was finally time to get back to work, and I ended up finishing him in two days. And that’s the way it goes. I just need a good swift kick in the pants (or a text) to get me in go-mode, and it takes no work at all.
I wish I could say that I will learn this lesson, but this is quite consistently true.
Grace Line Arts 