I started this commissioned piece for a friend a while ago, but took quite some time off before getting back to it. Art, and painting especially, is one of those things that I struggle to force myself to do if I don't feel like doing it. The moment it starts to feel like "work", I immediately notice a dip in both my effort and the resulting quality of what I'm working on. I've realized it's one of the reasons why it's hard for me to give an estimated completion date for many of these commissioned pieces- it honestly just depends on how I'm feeling. That said, I did want to complete this before our move (hence the moving boxes in the background), but I made sure to allow plenty of time to start working on it before then.
The early stages
This was my first time painting fur. I've usually used Prismacolor colored pencils and found them much easier to use, so trying to do something similar with paint involved a lot of layers and experimenting. An additional challenge with this piece was trying to find a good balance between a "realistic" piece but still something fitting for a nursery (since that was the final destination for this)- at one point my biggest concern was making sure the otters didn't spook the baby. Adding slight smiles to the otters helped (atleast I like to think).
For the background, I opted for something simple with various shades of blue. I added the Van Gogh-esque style to make the water seem more dynamic and dimensional, but didn't do that for the whole background since I didn't want the water to become the focal point and overtake the otters.
The final product
