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.
