The Finish of the Commission

So I began the research of finding out how to fix and preserve and image that has been printed from an ink-jet printer. Golden puts out digital grounds and varnishes which worked well so go see their website for the products and information for you artists out there - they have some great U tube video's you can play right on their website. In addition, I discovered that I could apply a Krylon fixative and put the UV varnish over that - drying between layers.

I also added some additional images that have personal meaning, gold stitches and tracings of the objects, a netting with symbolic meanings, extending the pine tree branches to enfold, embrace and support the other images. Pines being so much a part of our ocean dunes here on the Peninsula. Everything in the painting has symbolic meaning to myself or/and her. I also had to knock back the white and find an opaque or transparent color that worked and tied everything together, and even though it obscured the stamped words I decided that was ok as the words form an underpinning like a whisper, not a shout.

This picture doesn't look as vibrant as the real painting. My at home critic is unsure if he likes it since it has a lot more realistic images than my normal collage mixed media and is not as bright. And the jury is still out if the person who received this as a gift likes it. In the end there is always lots of uncertainty about a commission.

When I paint for the general public in gallery or exhibition hanging, I paint mixed media with a very bright palette and I paint for myself, until I am fully happy with the painting and there is a resonance I feel inside that I have expressed something I needed to and that it jumps from the wall in a certain way. All this is modified for commission because the painting has to resonate and jump for both of us, me and the client, not just necessarily for me I think.