The funniest commission requests ever
 

I was reading Mary's post about the baby parts and it started me thinking about some of the more unusual requests I have had (and done). I thought this might make an interesting thread.

The one that comes to mind first is the big HUGE long-haired biker dude that made an appointment and came to my house one evening. He had said he needed a portrait of his brother. He proceeded to show me the tattoo on his upper arm of a man, it was his dead son. The portrait he wanted me to do was a pencil sketch of his brother, who had just passed away.

It was to be taken to a tattoo artist to put on his other arm. It was a sad situation, although I did not get into the reason for the deaths, but what was kind of funny is that I did the job - I was afraid not to. You should have seen his Harley.

There was one other from a male body-builder. He said his attorney girlfriend had a collection of famous nude prints in her office. He wanted a pastel sketch of himself nude for a birthday gift to add to her collection. He went on and on about how built he was and the competitions he had won.

I went out and bought new pastels and boned up on life sketching. The day before he was to arrive (I was working in my home at the time) I arranged for my mother-in-law to come over - my husband was afraid the guy could be a freak and I would be home alone and all. My mother-in-law is an artist herself, she was about 77-years-old at the time. She wanted to sit in on it, but I told her no since it might make him uncomfortable.

When he arrived, all started fine, except that he wanted to flex - which was hard to draw - but my wonderful mother-in-law couldnt stop herself - she had to peek in. She pretended there was a phone call, knocked & opened up the door.

When this guy got a peek at this 77-year-old tiny little woman peeking at him over her glasses he bolted. He got dressed very quickly and I never heard from him again. I made her pay me for the new pastels. Her only comment was to laugh and say she thought he must take steroids.

So anyone have any interesting/funny commissions they were asked to do?

Someone once asked me to do a huge painting of a tiger for their black-and-chrome living room (this was the eighties) but I turned them down.

Commission requests are like requests generally-you've got to turn some down and don't even want to recall many of them.

That may be true Tim, turning them down that is- but the really funny ones make great stories. I wouldn't take either of those jobs I mentioned above now, but I get a big kick out of remembering them.

I do get asked from time to time to paint someone in the nude or partially draped in a very suggestive way. I am uncomfortable with things that border on the tasteless and turn these jobs down.

I did get asked once to paint a pooch with angel wings, a bone in his mouth, sitting on a cloud and turned that one down.

Another nightmare painting I was asked to do was a pix of an elderly suffering woman (somebody's mother-in-law) in a hospital bed with an IV drip stuck in her arm. I was to paint Jesus standing beside this tormented soul with his hand on her head. I passed on this one too.

I was approached by the mother of a teenage daughter who wanted her daughter to be painted "to look skinny." The child was perfectly beautiful just as she was. I thought that the mother was way out of line - and I told her that I refused to participate in sending the kid a message that she was "not OK."

I've probably lost a lot of money by refusing commissions, but I sleep well at night. :)

This is serious, no joke
 

When I was doing art quilting I was asked to do a quilted young man, lounging on a zebra skin rug, surrounded by mirrors. I was willing to do it but the client chickened out.

Oh, forgot, this was from life!

Jean

Karin & Jean,

Wow, the title should be changed to 'scariest' instead of funniest.

I keep thinking about the woman in the hospital bed, can you imagine sleeping at night with a painting like that staring down at you?

The quilt with the nude guy on a zebra rug, now THAT'S art.;)

Nude on zebra skin
 

Kim, this one was right up there with Elvis on velvet!

Jean

I had an odd male model once who showed up at a life class and dumped so much oil on his body that he dripped through the entire pose. We were surprised that he didn't slip off the dias. Also, he couldn't stop grinning.

He made us so uncomfortable we didn't ask him back. Ugh.

Karin,

I had a freaky model once in college too.

All the regular models walked out in robes then took them off when on the stand.

This one walked out nude going in between all the students. Then at the break I am still working, not looking up and someone speaks to me over my shoulder. I turn around and he is standing there buck naked about 2 inches away. He was asking if he could buy the drawing. I tore it off the easel and handed it to him while I backed away REAL fast.

An artist friend once got a call from someone who wanted a portrait and she referred him to me. My husband happened to take the call and the guy explained that he was interested in commissioning a nude of two adolescents. Then he asked whether my husband would like to observe the sessions. We contacted the sheriff's office. Apparently this fellow had called several other artists with a similar request, in a couple of different counties. I don't know whether he was getting his jollies from the conversation alone or what was going on, but in the off chance that there were actually some real children potentially being exploited this way we felt we should notify the authorities. I wasn't really impressed by the sophistication, intelligence, and persistence of our local detectives, though. I don't know what ever happened in the end.

I would have refused the commissions you rejected too, Karin. Yecch!

I also don't paint animals, except as adjuncts to people, and have lost a bunch of commissions for that reason.

What is it with people and their nude portrait requests? In my first attempted incarnation as a portrait painter, at 20, fresh out of school, I put a classified ad in the Chicago Tribune. All 6 calls were nude requests, one was a couple, and all of them turned out not to really be committed to the idea, but they sure wanted to TALK about it.

I loved figure drawing, and I think one of the reasons we do it is to learn to either love the body, or learn that you DON'T love the body. There were lots of people who were sensitive to the face and downright brutal to the body, and just as many who were just the opposite, could render a breast with utter tenderness but never noticed the general proportions of a skull.

It just seems so right that models come in various shades of weirdness, so we can learn to love it all. My very favorites were the ladies of VOLUME, and the one with the furry breasts. That was the first time I ever saw thorough tattooing, stretch marks, and the effects of aging. Loved it!

Resurrect this funny thread
 

I had to resurrect this thread to share my weirdest request to date. I was at a dinner party where I only knew the hosts. We were sitting at the table eating an elegant dinner when the subject of my being a portrait artist came up. A woman across the table got all excited and said she has wanted a particular portrait done of her daughter for a long time. "She's naked, lying on a white fur rug, definately with her adorable bum in plain view." Knoiwing she was way too old to have a baby, I envisioned a photograph of a baby she had in mind for reference until she inroduced me to her daughter sitting next to her, fifty years old. "Of course I would like her to lose a few pounds before she poses for you". This mother daughter duo shook me up!

Ack!

Mercury must be in retrograde or something odd must be in the air.

I had a "naked" request 'bout a month ago (as opposed to "nude") from a man who wanted to "remember" his ex girlfriend that way. Since she naturally refused to cooperate, he said he wanted me to "make it up."

I declined. Ick.

Woman once called me and offered me thirty thousand dollars to paint her nude....I thought about it for a minute and asked her, "Can I keep my socks on so I'll have a place to wipe my brushes?"

Bada BOOM!

Hahaha, snort, guffaw, chuckle. I needed a good laff today. Thanks!

Possible or Impossible?
 

What funny, wonderful stories! Getting belly laughs like those make the serious business of portraiture worth every struggle!

Now, it's my turn. This one was one of those "Can you top this?" extreme stories that I swapped with an artist who also includes animal portraiture in her portfolio. My story had to do with painting a dead dog and the dealings with a difficult client. Thinking my saga HAD to win our "contest," she countered with her story. Her tale was about being commissioned to paint the portrait of a client's favorite horse who was..."on it's last legs." She got a call late at night to hurry to the stable and photograph the horse before it went to horse-heaven. She dutifully drove to the client's ranch, and here's the fun part: The horse was black. The stall was dark and the horse was dead!

"Well, did you do the portrait?" I asked, thinking it an impossible task.

"Sure," she said, "and the owner loved it."

As she was not given to exaggeration, I accepted the story knowing that she had won our contest. I did wonder where she got her photo reference. Hmmmmm, Black Beauty, maybe?

OK, stop...you win the prize. If I laugh any harder I won't be able to paint today. Your dead horse story is the funniest yet ever!

I lead a dull life....

There's no way I can top these!

I did get a request from a wife to draw her husband's deceased dad in pastels. "Big Daddy" - a portly gentleman - had on a choir robe and she wanted him in the sky with angel wings - with her husband looking up to him from below.

Yes, I did it. She is a fellow teacher and it meant a lot to her. But I did at least convince her to allow some clouds to suggest angel wings.

This one takes the prize for weirdness!
 

This came from my ex-coordinator / gallery owner friend, whom i worked with long time ago. She runs a regular weekly live drawing sessions, and always on a lookout for new models for her group.

Apparently, one guy came for audition, and after some talks they finally sealed the deal. He asked my friend one last question: are your artists going to draw my face with my body?

My friend was amused, and gave him a definite reply. He smiled and said, "Oh...then..."

"Can i put a paper bag over my head??"

She nearly fell off her seat!
Apparently this guy doesn't want to be recognized (i think he was some top civil servant i guess...) She canned her laughter, and gently turned him down...and he was disappointed by the rejection!

The rest of the day was a laughing history!

Here's a sad one
 

A middle-aged lady who came to the studio with a photo of her and her husband in happier times, arm in arm. She wanted a pastel of the photo to try to win her husband back from a lover that he'd gotten involved with. In the end, at the unveiling, she loved the painting, but her husband didn't like it at all. Sometimes you've got to know when to say good-bye, but it is hard.

A strange one
 

I attend a life class on Thursdays here in Shanghai. It is attended by a number of older Chinese men. I am the only foreigner. The Chinese models are all mostly very professional. They tend to be poor ladies from the provinces who are honestly trying to make a living in the big city. Many people in Shanghai come from other parts of China, and send the bulk of their meager incomes home to the families so that the family can live better. Then, in time they may or may not return to their home town themselves.

Well, this one model comes, all dressed in her Saturday night at the disco gear, and immediately approaches me in perfect English. Inside of three minutes we managed to communicate that I am very married. She was very divorced, and wanted me to hook her up with a foreign man so that she could move to the USA or to Europe. "I have this South African guy now," she told me, "But I don't like him so much."

Well, the stand was set for her, she disrobed, and looked over to me. "Do you like my body?" She was scheduled for four more sessions, I didn't come to any of them. I couldn't paint with that kind of "Dirtiness." Although I didn't like my judgment of her at all, I felt I needed to distance myself.