A Personalised 30th Birthday Painting

This commission was from someone wanting a painting for her daughter's 30th birthday present.
The original brief was for a painting of Trevone Bay in Cornwall with the following things included:

The daughter and her man
Cows wearing jumpers
Gandalf riding a flying filofax
Flying pigs
A school badge
A stethoscope
A violin
A surfboard
A blue Fiat Pinto
A saxophone
A hockeystick
The daughter doing a bungee jump

All the objects were relevant to the daughter's life (although I still don't know what Gandalf on a Filofax was all about!) At first I tried to incorporate all the things into one picture, but as you can imagine, it all looked a bit peculiar...Luckily I had a brainwave and decided it might be better to put everything in a border around the edge, which worked much better.

The daughter's lovely mum kindly sent me photos of her daughter unwrapping the painting and told me her daughter had said, "This is the most thoughtful and  very best present I have ever had"

For me, knowing a painting has touched the recipient, is always the best bit of the whole process. Hurrah!