I love doing personal commissions for people. I think most of my close friends have commissioned me for a painting in recent years. Two years ago I came across an old high school friend on facebook who reminded me that I sold little drawings of Disney characters to my fellow classmates when I was 12 years old. She still had my drawing of Aladdin's Abu. I had completely forgotten about these first commissions of mine. How funny. Anyway, last year I was commissioned by my dear friend Kyla to do a family portrait for her. This has become my favorite finished commission. At the time of this commission Kyla and her boyfriend Arlo were pregnant. They live in Tucson AZ, and are practicing a very sustainable living. He builds solar panels for people, she teaches gardening, they buy all their food locally, they take trains, ride bikes...it's all quite gruesome to watch considering they live in a place that is consistently over 100 degrees for 8 months of the year! When I lived in Tucson I enjoyed a very air conditioned existence.
Kyla is a curmudgeon. She had many requests for this painting. She had to be pregnant, there had to be javalinas knocking over the trash in the background, she wanted a sun hat and a cute dress, a desert landscape and their two dogs. Eddie the dog, had to be eying a fly. It was quite the list. I was excited to do it.
I kept thinking about Grant Woods' painting American Gothic when I was sketching out my ideas for Kyla. I decided that that was my inspiration painting. I aspired to keep a similar humor in Kyla's portrait, and also have it represent a lesser visualized part of America which is the South West. I also like the fact that this is a portrait of two people that are doing real good in the world with their progressive methods, good-natured teachings and sensibilities. These two are some 'good guys' of my generation fighting the good fight and I was proud to capture them. Arlo pegged the term "hickster" for himself, and I like it!
Here are some in-progress sketches and the final painting. The painting was huge!
