Family tree painting? Nope, it’s a family cactus painting!
I love the flexibility of creativity. An architect working on a building’s blueprints has very limited flexibility with her design. A building has to be structurally sound or it will collapse. An artist, on the other hand, can do pretty much whatever she pleases. Nothing in the painting has to make sense, (as long as her clients are OK with it, of course). Luckily for me, the majority of people who commission paintings from me are pretty open-minded to begin with. Otherwise, they’d probably spend their money on something considered slightly more practical in a traditional sense than a family tree painting.
Speaking of things not making ‘traditional’ sense… I recently had a really fun order from a daughter of a couple celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. My client her parents to me. She told me that her dad is a radio personality, and her mom is a real estate agent whose favorite flower is a daisy. Based on how my client described her parents to me I had a clear vision of how I could paint their family tree. I decided to paint the husband with a microphone, the wife with a real estate ‘sold’ sign behind her and some daisies next to her.
Eureka: a family tree can be a cactus
As I was contemplating what to do for the painting’s background I had an epiphany. Since the couple lives in the area with the predominantly desert landscape with lots of cacti, I dared to propose to my client that we should use a cactus for her family tree instead of a traditional tree. She agreed! I had a blast painting a cactus, my very first ‘genealogical cactus’…
As always my favorite part of creating a custom family tree painting was finding out that my client’s parents loved their anniversary gift. My client even send me a photo of her parents opening their gift, and it totally made my day. What could be more rewarding than making people happy with your art? I especially loved the expression on their granddaughter’s face. You know you’re doing something special when someone sees a painting that you created and her jaw drops. 🙂
To order your own custom family tree please refer to the Ordering Family Tree Steps page.
