I may not be an artist but let me be artistic

Aside from finishing up Rachel's doggie snack painting (what is it with dogs and paper? I had one that used to eat Kleenex and he'd just pull them out of the box; he was that obsessed) I had another painting to do this weekend.

It's quite a lovely dress, just about the right amount of detail and she sent me some huge pictures which I am very thankful for.But oh that brown. I suggested lots of nice colors, a simple sky look to match with her lovely yellow rose bouquet or elegant black. But nope, she wanted brown and truffle brown at that. As you can probably tell I couldn't just do solid brown. I had to add something, give it a little oomph and stagger the color or I'd go crazy with 80's flashbacks when my mother wore nothing but brown for a good 5 years.

I'm also starting to run into an interesting situation in this making paintings for people I don't know (so people I can't belittle with constant requests). More and more people are demanding certain things. Over the weekend I got probably the most presumptive message ever. Essentially she wanted a painting done of her friend's dress and included some images that were at best 400 pixles wide and then said she wanted me to make it look like some other artist (who charges thousands of dollars I might add) had painted it. Oh and could I also make it on an 18X24 canvas.

I very nicely informed her that there was no way in hell I could pull that off even if I wanted to. See I am not a mind reader, I was not in attendance at the wedding. I have no idea what detail was on the bodice or the beading around the skirt or really what the bottom of the skirt looks like because you didn't include it. It's only through close up pictures that I can even hazard a guess at details and about 30 different ones of the dress in profile. Frankly for my 8X10's I really want at least a 1,000 pixel image.

For an 18X24 you better just send me a poster sized image or mail me a billboard. Because it's only by being able to zoom in on the details that I can make something I feel reflects the dress.

The less said about asking someone to mimic another artists work the better. Sorry, the paintings I make are all my own style. Don't like it, go pay the other woman $1,000 (though trust me, she's going to ask for huge pictures too).

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. I'm getting more and more gift requests which are a major challenge as they don't have access to 500 different pictures of the bride in her dress so I'm improvising a lot. And I'm also finding that people seem to think I'm some sort of miracle worker.

Nope, sorry. I'm just some lab grunt who can wave a brush around. You may want to try Anne Sullivan down the hall for a miracle worker.