Starting a commissioned piece...

I’ve been very fortunate to have received two commissions in the last couple of weeks. Working on a commissioned piece is a little different from working on my own stuff. Many artists will not take commissions because it takes away from their creative freedom. I can see where that could be an issue and I agree that you need to be careful, you could easily become a one trick pony and you definitely run the risk of repeating yourself. In this case I’ve been fortunate enough that both commissions left me completely in charge. In both cases I was basically given a subject and a size to work in, with the rest being left to me. I did talk to the clients to try and find out the things they liked and didn’t like about my work, so there are some guidelines I need to keep in mind while creating the pieces. 

Overall the creation of these two pieces shouldn’t be much different from creating a piece that’s not commissioned, with the only difference being that the choice of the subject wasn’t mine. Somehow it doesn’t work that way though. I seem to have a little more difficulty starting these pieces. I think it has something to do with the fact that there’s people with expectations ‘waiting’ at the end where normally there’s just me. 

Now I’m not saying that I’m not critical when it comes to my own work, believe me I am, I think artists are usually the harshest critics when it comes to their own work. But with a commission there are people who have expectations of a piece that I haven’t created yet, and they’ve already made a deposit so they have the right to have expectations. This makes the creation of the pieces feel slightly more loaded which makes it harder for me start working on them. I’m the kind of person that doesn’t want to disappoint anyone, especially a client. 

I realize that I just have to let go of these ‘fears’, if I don’t the pieces will never get made and I guess that would disappoint them even more. These people chose to give me these commissions and they did so for a reason. They have seen my stuff and like what I do so I just have to trust that they will like the pieces that I have yet to create as well. 

So this is me, letting go of my fears and getting on with it, commissioned pieces here I come!