I was pretty proud of how this one turned out. I spent about a week working on it, communicating with the commissioner all the way to get approval on small details.

When it came time to pay though, she uttered a sentence that made my heart drop. "Let me go ask my Dad." I had no idea that she was a child. I mean, she said her name was Helen. A grandma name! And of course, daddy wasn't too keen on forking over $60 for a commission he hadn't approved.

He told me that he wasn't paying for it, that his daughter could definitely do something better if she put her mind to it...and that was that. I didn't get paid. I also didn't send her the high-res product though, so nobody really won.

Lesson learned - Always ask for payment in advance. I usually do, but the handful of times that I've broken my own rule, I've been burned.

No matter - I still learned a lot working on this one. I can see a hundred things I might do differently in future paintings...but overall, I think it turned out nice.