I’m looking for paintings, and although I didn’t particularly plan to commission one, I stumbled upon commissionapainting.com in a search. In principle, and in the abstract, it’s intriguing: find an artist you like and commission a new work. Even supposing I were sold on the idea of commissioning a new painting, I’m underwhelmed by this site.
First, the banner atop the site advertises it as commission.a.painting.com which is a completely different site. It’s a site that doesn’t exist. And it would, if it were actually valid, be a subdomain of painting.com, which Sherwin-Williams owns. So this site doesn’t even know its own web address.
Second, upon hitting the Search page, I scanned the list of countries showing how many artists are listed in each:
Worldwide
Canada (0)
USA (0)
Australia (0)
United Kingdom (0)
New Zealand (0)
In the immortal words of Tom Hanks in Big, “I don’t get it.”
I like the relationships. Each character has his own story. The puppy is a bit too much, but you have to overlook that. The way he’s holding her, it’s almost… filthy. He’s about to kiss her and she’s pulling away… The way his leg is smashed up against her… Look how he’s painted the blouse, sort of translucent, you can make out her breast, and it’s sort of touching him… It’s really pretty torrid, don’t you think? And of course you have the onlookers peeking out like they’re all shocked. They wish. I must admit, when I see a painting like this, I get emotionally… Erect.