Luz de Sol (Sunlight)

Postscript: Luz de Sol went to live with Bobfather, a fitting thing as that canvas was entirely inspired by how happy he's been since Lux has come into his life.
I'm making something for each one of our crew guys & his family, slowly, one-by-one. I have all their names on slips of paper in a paper lunch bag, & when I get ready, I pull out a name. The last name I drew -- well, alas! The fella is no longer working for us, but I had already started this canvas before he left, so I'll be mailing it to him I guess.

This represents a HUGE boundary push for me. I promised myself I would NEVER NEVER NEVER NEVER do any of these canvases with the women's faces, because all the artists I admire the most do these, and a) that intimidated me and b) I have wanted so badly to carve my own niche. However, this gentleman's wife, the intended recipient of the canvas, wanted something similar to this -- and although of course she didn't specifically say, 'I want a canvas like Misty Mawn's or Judy Wise's,' this is what insisted on coming out in all my drafts. (Thankfully, you can't tell from looking at it how many times I did DO-OVERS, because the face! That face bloomed out of me.) It's just a small canvas [10"x 8"] that I flipped over so the back created a recessed 'shadow box' area. And it's actually very bright in there but the scan didn't pick it up. "Luz's" arms & the sun rays coming out of her head wrap around the edges of the canvas. [I can't even explain in what a different direction my brain thought this piece was going to go, but it involved hinging two of these canvases together, and transparency overlays across the recessed area.] 'Mujer', by the way, means 'woman' in Spanish.

I have to also say how stunned & touched I am by the way this turned out -- how proud I feel when I look at it. I didn't know I was capable of this.

I still have to seal it (am going to buy some GOOD QUALITY varnish or something tonight), and add the mounting hardware to the back, then I'm going to package it up and send it priority mail to the new owners!