“Wow, how long did that take?”

Artists, I’m sure, get this question a lot and I know because, well, I’m an artist and I get that question a lot. The answer is simple but really unmeasurable.

The painting took me 30, 40, 50 hours from start to finish, maybe longer. The truth is there is a lot that goes into a painting, but there’s so much more that goes into art.

I have spent countless hours developing ideas, a style, or perfecting techniques, but if you’d like to put a number to it, I’d estimate close to 20,000 hours so far. So how much time is that? It’s over two years straight, though the time has been spread out over about a decade, so I’m not even counting the hours I spent as a young child drawing.

So to answer the question correctly... How long did that take?

It took 18,545 hours to complete this painting because without those first 18,500 hours I would not have been able to create this painting.

There ya’ go, there’s the answer, at least the sweetened and condensed version 😁

Shot of me working in my studio 🎨