From way shitty to rent money

"Mrs. Theberge"
20x30", oil on canvas
February 2007
SOLD


For my first year as a bonafide "artist", i paid rent with commission paintings. Mostly portraits. Portraits of old people with glasses... mostly. One dead guy too. I mean, he wasn't dead and green in front of me or in the painting... but the dude had just passed away which made it kinda weird because I had developed a habit of putting auras and halos in my portraits... Anywho, I made about a dozen portraits that year, one for each month's rent. Not all of the paintings are great, some were a struggle and some were a breeze to do. The harder ones were more of an exercise in patience. That's why, back then I decided to make this little video documenting how the painting looks horrible for a while before it turns into gold. It takes a lot of will power to work on an ugly-ass painting when you wake up in the morning...