Fully realized

[Linda Brandon]

Originally Posted by Mike McCarty

When an intelligent, albeit not in the arts, person says to you:

* when will you finish it?
* why have you already framed it?
* did you just get bored with it and quit?
* were you pressed to start another?
* I would want mine to be finished with paint everywhere.
* you would charge less for this, right?

I know what you mean. I've also run into quite a few people who come right out and say that it drives them crazy when the artist doesn't fill up every spot of available space. I usually say something to the effect that the modern world has become so used to photography that we no longer see reality except as a camera might see it, i.e. with every area filled with something. But an artist is concerned with design and the direction of attention.

Another idea is to find a J.S. Sargent portrait executed this way, show them a copy and announce, "Look! Sargent did it this way." They will probably have heard of Sargent.

[Michele Rushworth]

Calvin Goodman, who is arguably the authority on art marketing, starts off by saying "The art market is not the mass market." I think someone who would ask questions like these is probably not a serious prospect.

[Mike McCarty]

As much as anything I am trying to educate myself for the possibility that someday I may be asked to elaborate, to explain the rational for choosing to cover the canvas or not. Eyes can be directed with color, shapes ... with paint.

Some artists are capable of more than one style. They might some day be asked to explain why two subjects, each in head and shoulder pose, would be depicted so differently.

In the example I posted above I recall that what I ended up with was the result of a fairly organic and spontaneous experience. It was not something that was a preconceived notion. But, it would seem that when we do these commissions we don't really have that kind of freedom, the freedom to be completely spontaneous.