Bathing Nymph at Convergence - Paint Party Friday

Hi everyone! I am sooooo glad to make it back to PPF!!!! I was pretty absent for a while, ironically enough, when I was working on a massive painting project - and all I can really say about that is that I just didn't have it in me to spend time contributing to the blogosphere while pushing the other thing forward.

In any event, that is done now, and am wanting to get back to this.

I have pretty much decided that I would like to effectuate a way to make art & painting a viable income source for me. I see lots of talented people on here who have made it as illustrators or fine artists - as for me, aside from completing this project & selling a few things here & there, I have not yet cinched the deal for me, art wise.

I really admire a lot of the career choices I see - I see professional illustrators, self-made etsy artists, instructors, and everything in between. What I would love to know is, do you have any advice to a total non-business savvy neophyte? Would love to hear others' thoughts on how they succeeded, what the process was like, etc.

For my painting today, I want to share a very old piece which still continues to be worked on - the first time I worked on it was in 2008, and it came from a last-semester painting project at University, where the instructor bid us to utilize the remaining 3 weeks to execute an epic painting, one that would in some fashion encapsulate all our learning throughout the semester. I decided to create a large (for me) painting utilizing an indirect painting technique, measuring 3' x 4' depicting a moonlight canyon scene and a nymph bathing below at the convergence of two waterfall streams.

I left it in a somewhat unfinished state back then, and then last summer (2011) spent a lot of time working on it - filling out the sky.

Finally, a week of so ago, as I was putting some finishing touches on my recent big project, I added some shrubbery to the left hand side. I am contemplating really filling it in with shrubbery, but am afraid of losing out on the caves & valleys & stuff.  

Anyway, I hope everyone is doing super OK! Thanks once again to Kristin & Eva for this great blog society!