Airbrush T-Shirts

There are some things I really wanted as a kid but never got. One was a Baby-Wet-and-Wipe. Can you believe there was a doll called Baby-Wet-and-Wipe? It was advertised constantly on Saturday mornings between cartoons. The commercial made it look so fun—feeding the baby with a little bottle and then changing its diapers. I stopped wanting one when I heard kids at my school calling other kids Baby-Wet-and-Wipes as an insult.

Another thing I really wanted was an airbrush t-shirt, maybe with a sunrise and my name on it. I didn’t get one but I did get my brother’s hand-me-down airbrush t-shirt with Kermit the Frog on it as well as my brother’s name. Not quite what I was hoping for, and possibly confusing to people who saw me wearing it, but I still really liked it. 

Since last week I’ve been working on a commission painting for a client who was hoping for a sunrise in the illustration. I was super excited to find the most fantastic photo on Instagram that I thought would help me capture my client’s vision. After getting permission to use the photograph for inspiration, I began working on the painting. It was going to be amazing!

But as I worked on the pink skies and pink mist rising from the lake I began to see visions in my head of the airbrush t-shirt I always wanted as a child. I could picture my name scrolled across the painting I was working on in big cursive letters, maybe with a star shining tastelessly on the first letter of my name. The vision wouldn’t leave my head. I panicked! Because the thing is—I don’t want an airbrush t-shirt of a sunrise anymore. That time has passed. And I’m one hundred percent positive that my client doesn’t want one either—no more than he wants a Baby-Wet-and-Wipe for Christmas this year. 

I tried toning the colors down in my painting, but I could still envision the scene on a t-shirt, so I knew I had a lot more work to do. Everyone else who saw the work-in-progress said, “But it looks pretty!” It didn’t matter. I have a policy— I will not offer a painting to a client unless I myself would want that painting. That’s the rule. And I didn’t want this one. 

It’s funny how when you look outside at an incredible sunset you never think to yourself, “those colors are ridiculous together and totally tacky.” God is so good at colors! So extravagant! I still love that pink sky photo with the pink mist. It captures a heavenly moment—that I think in truth, was too big for me. Only God could paint that one. In comparison, mine was a tacky t-shirt. 

Today, I completely painted over my sunrise and I’m not sorry for it. I’ll begin again tomorrow. After all, that’s what sunrises are about.

~Amy