My latest portrait was painted in secret as part of a conspiracy. Now it's okay to share

Several months ago, the fiance of an old friend sent me a message. She wanted to give her partner an awesome birthday present, and had decided that a commissioned oil portrait of pioneering anthropologist Dame Mary Douglas would be just the ticket. So my old friend's fiance and I began a secret correspondence to work out all the details.

The idea was for me to paint something that would go with a portrait of William James I had done for this friend some years ago, which he highly values. While my client poked around her fiance's office for clues as to what exactly he admired about Douglas, I worked out a composition and basic sketch.

While my client took a picture of the William James portrait to give me a clear idea of what frame to buy for the new work, I started laying down paint. A few dabs here and there at first, followed by some background and feature-defining shadows.

As the final work began taking shape, I started taking liberties with the brushwork that built up texture and suggested a measure of playfulness that I imagined accompanied Douglas while doing her fieldwork all those years ago.

And before I knew it, I was putting the final touches on the piece, framing it, and sending it off to Boston.

Then came the challenging part - waiting for my old friend's birthday. When it arrived, I sent him the usual greeting, and waited to hear back. I waited five days, which was just long enough to get me wondering if the surprise gift had somehow flopped.

Finally, at around midnight on the fifth day, I got a text which read: "Soooo....pretty cool painting of Mary Douglas!! Thanks man!!"

So everything had worked out as planned. And I was now free to post about painting this portrait on steemit without introducing the possibility that my friend would happen upon a picture of his big surprise before he'd received it.