The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions.

Good intentions are not enough. 

They've never put an onion in the soup yet.

Some projects are started with good intentions. Then they become tiresome, and you find yourself mentally preparing yourself to sit down and chip (slowly) away at said project. Such was the case for Rupert. Rupert was my first "commission based" painting. I say it was commissioned based, but it was really a gift for my boyfriends friend. I would consider it a commission however because he knew exactly what he wanted.

"Can you paint me a monkey smoking a cigarette with a top hat and a bow tie?" 

"OF COURSE!" I said. "NO PROBLEM!"

How ambitious I was. The only problem was that I had never painted a monkey before. Or smoke. Or...anything quite like Rupert. I sat in front of my blank paper with a dumb founded look on my face. "Start with the eyes" I told myself. Eyes are my favorite part of any painting, and if I get those right, than the rest is uphill from there. So that's what I did. I started on the eyes, but then found it taking almost a month to complete his face. I tortured my boyfriend daily telling him how frustrating it was to finish this painting. But I did not want to give up! I found the project to be one of the best learning experiences yet!

After the painting was finished I let out a huge sigh of relief, called up my boyfriends friend and told him it was done and ready to be hung up. My parents saw me work on the painting for almost 2 months, and my dad had come to love Rupert. It was one of his favorite paintings, and he tried to convince me not to give it up. After all that stress however, I was a little happy to see him go to a good home.

I'm proud to say that there hasn't been one single project yet that I've thrown out the window. There have been times where I've had to stop with a painting and just be satisfied with the end result (even though in my eyes it would never REALLY be completed). But I've never given up on a painting. There's always salvation for artwork. No matter how stressful, aggravating, or tiresome it becomes.

And if you're wondering where Rupert's hat went, well....I liked his bald little head a little too much to cover it up!