I painted my (second) first commission as an official art business (super cute story time)

Happy tuesday, friends! Today, I am off from my day job and so I really wanted to get painting for my FIRST COMMISSION AS AN OFFICIAL ART BUSINESS!! Well... It's not actually my first...

This commission is a cute pet portrait! The last I will do in this thicker, acrylic style :)

Did you know I used to have an art business, way back in 2020? When the days were grim and I had recently rekindled my love for painting and I decided during lockdown to quit my job and give myself ONE YEAR to make it as an artist (without any prior training in business, social media, or managing money for that matter lol). It was a very bad idea, but I thought I had nothing to loose and I was desperate for a change, and to live a creative life.

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Let me paint you a picture: I am someone who always, always was drawing as a kid. And I was good at it. So it could have made sense to me that I would become an illustrator... But growing up, I found myself having multiple interests, and the idea of being an artist as a profession wasn't particularly valued or respected where I grew up so, as I was quite good at many school subjects, I focused on being a good scholar and listened to my parents advice. I studied maths, science until I was 17, and come time to pick a school or university I was so unprepared to try to get into art school, that I didn't even realise how unprepared I was.

I applied to ONE art school. A public one. I got rejected. (Of course, I was. I was super immature, and also I was one in a million other candidates, many of whom were adults with a proper portfolio, and I had just made fancy photocopies of my sketchbooks and written a motivational letter than ran along the lines of "I wanna be an illustrator" lol).

So I had to go with my second choice, which I never even thought I would have to go to, because of how blind I was, and I went to university to study Musicology!

As a people (parents) pleaser and a teacher's pet, I decided to continue my studies until I finished my Masters degree. I really love music. I did so many cool things at uni, and met so many people I still love and am friends with, people from all around the world... I discovered my deep love for musical theatre, I sang a lot, went on adventures...

And then I decided to try to pursue musical theatre, found a school... took a year off before finishing my masters and enrolled in a one-year theatre program.

Did I mention that during the whole of my four years of uni, I had completely stopped drawing?? Well, at theatre school, I was feeling happy and creative and alive and so I started drawing again. A spark was back. Very small, but alive.

Then a year later I finished my masters, was on my way to apply for a THESIS and then BAM! COVID!! So I had loads of time to think during the first lockdown and sat with myself and thought : I should stop pursuing musicology and just pursue ART. Visual arts to be precise. So I said goodbye to my studies, goodbye to my student jobs and tried myself at buiding an art business.

I had no particular goal, I just wanted to make art. And I failed terribly. I did do a few commissions for friends, maintly pet portraits. I undersold myself and spent everything I earned on art supplies and so I never seemed to make anything. I think in one year I must have earned about 2,000 euros. Which is better than nothing, but it depressed me and I decided to stop, and start again later when I would have a better plan.

Said commission, circa 2021

One of the commissions I had painted at the time, in 2021, was a pet portrait for my sister's best friends. She had just lost one of her cats and was grieving him, and my sister thought she would be happy to have something to remember him by. She was indeed quite happy, and moved by the portrait I made.... :) 💕

FAST FORWARD TO : the end of 2024. I get a message from my sister's friend's friend. She tells me she would like to purchase from me a painting of the other cat, who also passed away. I tell her I don't have an art business yet but if it can wait, I will gladly do it.

My style has evolved so much, but I really wanted to honour her beautiful kitties and make her something that would go well with the first portrait, that she could hang together, that would look coherent.

I started working on a few research sketches

So I built my business again so that I could do this commission. I set goals, I moved fast(ish), and executed my vision.

This is the first commission I made as an official art business again, and it will be the last that I do in this style. Because I want to take commissions in a more illustrative style, that is more me now, but it felt important to close this chapter properly.

This piece means so much to me now, it is a last goodbye to the immature, naive but also very brave youngling that I was a few years back when I tried and failed. I might fail again this time. Who knows, but what I do know is that at least failure won't kill me.

I hope she loves this one too, I even made a bonus tiny painting of her two cats together. I had fun painting them, and was very moved while working on this commission because of how loved I know those two cats were, and still are.

Look at these little angels :)

That was my little story for today, happy tuesday my loves,

Ariane.