Two Perspectives

OK. Yes it is finally done. And in truth, I am a bit glad. Exhausted, but, well, perhaps more relieved than glad. Sort of like those Olympians we are watching following the end of some grueling event. Putting the "thrill of victory and the agony of defeat" aside, they were all just glad to have completed the task they had set for themselves. So I am glad to have completed this task. And the image is truly one that is best seen live. Or if you are not planning a visit, on as big as screen as possible. Project it to your TV if you have those skills.

Anyhow, here it is:

And no, I really have no preference as to which side defines up and down, left or right. I will probably have to make that decision once I put it up on a wall, assuming I can find space on a wall somewhere that can accept it. Something that is far from certain. It is 40x50 inches.

But simply telling you the dimensions doesn't really describe the size. I have created larger images, some blended images; part hand-drawn, then digitally enhanced and printed top out at 4 x 5 feet. And then there was that image that was wrapped around a city bus in Raleigh - yeah, bus size. But Carriage Ride is the largest pure hand-to-paper piece I have ever done. So here is an ill-advised "selfie" to demonstrate its size:

So as I consider the image, and the guy behind the image, I fall to reflecting on the "narrative" that best describes the evolution - the dénouement of the image if you will.

The earliest evidence I can find of the image is this picture from August 27th of last year:

Which is obviously a painted version of this image:

Which is, strangely, dated a week later. There are then a number of interim images up until Valentines Day 2026, which was when I declared that the image was “finished-finished.”

Which brings us to the first perspective which is the perspective of the artist. And this is where I defer to Rembrandt's assertion, which I have mentioned before, that "a painting is finished when the artist says it is finished." So the creative process of painting Carriage Ride ran from about August 27 of 2025, until Valentine's Day 2026. So let's run the numbers.

That's 176 days. And I figure an average of about two and half hours a day. Some less, some considerably more. Which brings us to somewhere between 400 and 500 hours of flinging myself down and laying on the floor drawing the bits and bobs of the final image. Which brings us to the interesting second perspective: What is a painting worth?

Well, if you use the highest number I ever got for "consulting" back in the day: $500.00 an hour including travel, lodging etc. Using a "dollars per painting hour" scale I would put the value of the painting at about $250,000.00. However, the value an artist places on an image is not the relevant metric here. Rather, the second perspective is that: a painting is worth what someone is willing to pay for it.

So Salvator Mundi, reportedly by Da Vinci, sold for $450 million, purportedly to a mysterious Saudi prince, and Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Elisabeth Lederer recently topped $236.4 million at Sotheby’s. However, the most expensive Van Gogh painting ever sold is Orchard with Cypresses (Verger avec cyprès) from the collection of Paul Allen, which fetched $117.2 million at a Christie's auction in 2022 . Pretty "spendy" as my kin in South Dakota would say.Yet it was a painting unable to find any buyer during the artist's lifetime.

Which tempts me to quote the King in The King and I : "Tis a puzzlement!"

Personally, neither perspective will drive my consideration for my next image. Rather, I will chose an image appropriately sized to fit on my drawing table - enough floor painting. And I'm thinking of something that reduces white space - rather, something that contrasts color, light  and darkness. A touch of chiaroscuro, which I remember thinking was a Mexican spice. I believe I have a photograph that I took of a streetlight on a bridge between Buda and Pest that might be a good starting point.

I'll keep you posted. :-)

Oh, and if any of you have a spare quarter million you wish to invest in Carriage Ride, I accept cash, checks, credit cards, PayPal, gold, and appraised gems.  But no bitcoin.