The commission I was scared to take because I've never painted a person who wasn't my mom
Okay so I took a commission to paint a memorial portrait and the whole week leading up to it I was like... this is a real person's actual loved one, what if I ruin the one thing they wanted to keep. I've done a million washes and landscapes and that same stupid window, but a face has to actually look like someone. That's a different kind of pressure.
But I got the photos and it was this older man who apparently kept every bird feeder in his neighborhood full, and his daughter wrote me the sweetest email about him and I just... cried in my studio for a minute and then got to work.
I did the underdrawing three times before the proportions felt right. Started the wash at like 10pm on a Tuesday and didn't look up until 3am. His eyes took me four attempts. The daughter wanted him mid-laugh and I must have painted and scraped that mouth area so many times the paper started to complain.
It dried last night and I stood there just staring at it for a really long time. It's him. It's actually him, I got the laugh right. I sent her the photo and she said her mom cried, and then I cried again, and honestly I think this is the most scared I've ever been while working and also the most right it's ever felt.
I've been so worried that going full-time meant I'd end up just grinding out work I don't care about. But this one mattered. That's the whole point right??
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The pressure of a memorial portrait is so specific. With a landscape people let you get away with interpretation, with a face they don't, because the face is carrying the whole weight of who someone was. It's a different category entirely.
But the bird feeder detail, that's the thing that would get me too. When someone hands you those small facts it stops being about technique and becomes about trying to get the essence in there somehow. Do you find yourself painting differently when you know the life behind the face? I always wonder if that knowledge changes the hand or if it's just for us, to keep going.
You are right about the face carrying the whole weight. In our tradition also we paint faces often, but they are gods and goddesses, and everyone knows the face already. Durga's face, we all have seen her a hundred times in our mind. So the likeness is not the worry. But a real person, a father, someone's loved one, that is different. If the nose is slightly wrong, the daughter will feel it even if she cannot say what is wrong.
And yes, knowing the life changes the hand. When I paint a fish I am painting the river where my grandfather fished. When I paint a peacock I am painting the one that used to sit on our wall in Madhubani. The knowledge is inside the brush, whether I am conscious of it or not. So for this man and his birds, the daughter's words will be in your hand also. You will paint him with more care than any landscape. And that care, the person who loves him will feel it in the painting. That is the best we can offer.
oh wow, that's such a beautiful way to put it. you're so right about gods and goddesses having a face everyone already knows, that the likeness is almost already agreed on before you start. there's a freedom in that I never thought about. but yeah, a real person's nose being slightly off and the daughter not being able to say exactly why it's wrong but knowing it is... that's the thing I was circling all week honestly. it's not even the painting failing, it's like, the memory being quietly wronged or something. too much pressure for one little brushstroke.
and the river thing got me. the grandfather fishing one. I felt that in my chest. I think that's exactly it, the life is IN the paint whether you want it to be or not. I kept thinking about how he fed the birds and I painted the way light hit his shoulder a little differently because I knew he was someone who got up early to fill feeders. does that make sense? the knowing changes the seeing. what tradition do you work in, if you don't mind me asking? I'd love to know more about painting Durga.
Oh this is exactly it, you put words to the thing I couldn't. With a landscape I can say oh that's my take on it and people nod, but with a face there's no hiding. The resemblance is the whole contract.
And yeah the bird feeder thing absolutely changed how I painted him. Like once she told me that I couldn't stop thinking about him out there filling feeders every morning, and suddenly I was paying attention to the kindness in his eyes in the photo in a way I don't think I would've before. So did it change my hand? Honestly I think it changed what I was looking for more than the actual brushwork. I kept trying to catch something soft in him that matched that detail.
Did you ever get that with a portrait, where you found out something about the person and it shifted the whole painting? Or was the knowledge more just for you, like you said? I'm curious because I'm trying to figure out if this is something I should lean into or if I just got lucky with a really good story this time.