A Christmas Commissioned Card

I thought I would share this work which was a change in genre for me. No flowers or butterflies here. I was honored this December to have a special request to create a card that was to be a gift for a sports fan. One who was particularly a basketball fan. More specifically fond of the Lakers. And precisely a Kobee Bryant follower. And there ends my knowledge of shooting hoops. Which by the way is pretty much all courtesy of google. This challenge was very enjoyable for me because it pushed me to explore another world of composition and I tried not to think of failure. Pretty much anything I did had to be better than my last basketball painting. Because I had no other basketball paintings. LOL. I studied the basketball, examined the backboard, picked out the colors for the uniform and thought about a setting for an action shot. Honestly, I now felt quite ready to dribble away. I admit that I had moments of stress and experienced that inevitability that I had a fatality on hand. No, do not tear it up. Walk away, take a deep breath, and come back. Maybe go eat some chocolate. Get a good night's sleep. Everything will look better in the morning. Hmmm. Seems like a lot of applicable life lessons are embedded here. Anyways, I couldn't do the traditional basketball court. You see my trademark blue sky with puffy clouds, cityscape, and my green foliage sneaking and creeping up in the background. There is always a place for nature. I wonder if Kobee learned his game on the playground or neighborhood streets. Well, I decided that he did because it worked for this composition. Here is to looking forward to new and better things in 2014. One love and peace on earth to all from the Quirky Artiste on Christmas Day!

And here's a flashback to one of my fav quotes, shared again with me recently by a friend... "Every child is an artist. The problem is remaining one as an adult." Or something like that. I'm sure Picasso said it more eloquently.