Here’s my creative process while making a painting for my friend Tommaso, an Italian foreign exchange student, and then gifting it to him the day before he flew back to Italy.
Read more about Tommaso here: Italian Foreign Exchange Student Tommaso Stella Describes His Experience Living in Florida for a Year – Nicole’s Everything Blog (nicoleseverything.com)

Inspiration
What led me to creating this portrait?
I painted this for my friend as a farewell gift. Honestly, I learned through this process that the best gifts are the ones that take the longest; they include sweat, pain, intricate details, and most importantly, love. You need to create with passion and love for beautiful results.
Creative process
I began by planning what “scene” I wanted to paint. What moment would represent Tom’s joy in Florida? What did he enjoy doing the most, and what brought him an ounce of success synonymously?
And it came to me, football. He loved American football, and I still had the hype video he made on his high school campus. He filmed it with his friends, and a famous football punter replied to his Instagram post. So… why not?

I screenshotted a few parts of the video that had nice scenery and a nice view of the sunset. Then, I had to choose which one I liked the best. The one I chose had his school’s name on the bleachers, a view of trees and the sunset, and of him in his uniform holding the football. It was nearly perfect.
Color
Choosing the colors was an intuitive process. I tried matching the paint color to the reference photo, but ultimately wanted more depth and brightness.
I needed to showcase my own view, not just copy the reference photo. And so, I brightened the shades.
What shocked my mom, who was sitting right next to me, was the colors I mixed. To create his skin tone, I mixed in hot pink with a bunch of other colors, like white and peach.
Let me repeat: HOT PINK. For his skin.
And yet I just kept going, I didn’t question myself. I knew that Tom had a warm skin tone, and the pink would bring that out. And so, I mixed and mixed, added some brown too, and got his skin color right on the first try.
Creating Tom
This was maybe my second or third time drawing a full body, so I was nervous that I’d ruin it. However, I ended up perfecting the muscle definition in my sketch (mostly in the quads) and translated that with paint too. I don’t often paint or color my sketches of people because I’m not great at color-matching skin tones or shading unless it’s in black and white, so it felt risky, but I was actually glad it turned out so well.

I will say I rushed toward the end though, so I didn’t get all the details that I wanted in white paint (like the number 5 on his shoulder pads or “Buccaneers” in white on the front of the jersey), so I did them in black sharpie. I’m still slightly annoyed with that… but it doesn’t look terrible, and Tom wasn’t upset about it. It is what it is and I shrugged it off.
Foreground
The grass probably upset me the most, because it took so many layers of paint to achieve the color I wanted. (Yes, artists aren’t always dandy and proud). I sat there and kept thinking, “What is it missing?”

Grass needs texture, it needs a range of shades, it’s not perfect and sometimes it’s yellow and dry. How was I supposed to include all of those elements and make it look realistic? My only option was layering and correcting colors that didn’t fit into the “puzzle.” It took a lot of time, and I didn’t finish it before everything else. I paused every once in a while to work on the other parts of the portrait. I came back to the grass and tried new shades and blending new layers of paint with old ones, until I was pleased with it.
The background
I think I was most ready to get the sky done so that it could all come together and look cohesive. The sky was relatively stress free to paint, although I kept running out of the colors that I mixed, so I had to keep re-mixing paint.
I was impressed with the colors I made for the sky. The blending came out smoothly, it was bright and beautiful. It was a bit hard to paint in the tiny spaces between the trees (because I painted the trees before the sky), but it still came out well and I was happy with it.

Tom’s reaction
When Tom was opening the gift, he had no idea what it was, but he seemed interested. When he saw it, he seemed so pleasantly surprised and shocked. It felt nice to have my work appreciated, but I was still nervous as everyone was admiring.
I will say I felt very humble in that moment where he was passing it around for everyone to see. I guess I felt small. I’m not exactly sure, but it felt like I couldn’t be present, and everything was buzzing around me. It was an odd feeling, having my work shown to every one of his friends and family.

Final thoughts
Would I do this again? Maybe, depending how much of a heartfelt gift I’d like to give to someone. I will still consider that it takes an incredible amount of time and effort.
The final reaction really made it worth it for me though. Tom was excited, and impressed, and grateful that I’d spent my time painting him. And I will never forget how someone’s appreciation of my work made me feel.
Just remember that the monetary value of a gift doesn’t always matter, it’s the thought and love you put into the gift that makes it special.

Peace, Nicole. 🫶
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