A Beautiful Commission Commemorating David’s Summer

When David reached out to us about commissioning an illustration from Denitsa Trandeva to commemorate a fabulous summer spent with a creative and adventurous blue-haired woman, we knew it would be brilliant. Though the two had to part ways (and continents) with the arrival of autumn, they will always have this vibrant illustration, which David packed with details highlighting the things they did together. Because it can be difficult to capture every facet of an entire season with one photo, we are thrilled David chose to commission an illustration featuring as many memories as possible!

Backstory Behind the Piece: Q&A With David

ArtCorgi (AC): What made you decide to commission art of your summer together?

David (D): I suppose I felt that an art piece would be the best way to commemorate our time together, especially as she had left Ireland for good, I felt it could be a nice little reminder of her time in Ireland for her.

AC: There are so many fun, personal details in the scene; how did you decide what to have drawn in what to leave out?

D: This was a very difficult process, some advice I would give to anyone who is commissioning a piece is to include as many details as possible, highlighting which bits are the most important, and then give the artist freedom to design what they feel best suits their style, this is what I did and it resulted in a background better than any I could have imagined, and a piece that all together feels very natural, no detail in it feels forced in my opinion. So it is just a case of giving as much information as possible and seeing what the artist comes up with in their draft, and just highlighting if any of the really important details have been left out.

AC: How did the gift go over? Did one of the details you chose to incorporate stand out more than others?

D: The gift went over amazingly, she loved the entire piece so much it brought her to tears :) Interestingly enough she spotted most details pretty much straight away, all of which she loved, but it was the one detail she missed that I that may have stood out the most in the end. On one of our last days together I brought her to an exhibition on old Irish writing, part of this exhibition detailed the ancient Irish writing system ‘Ogham’, for the piece I decided to include two Ogham stones inscribed with the Irish words for ‘Happiness’ and ‘Love’, I think that because it was a detail she initially overlooked and had to subsequently research in order to understand, that it ended up being one of her favourite aspects about the piece.