It lacked the violence of the nightmare piece, both in subject matter and in technique. The brushstrokes were gentle, feathering one area into the next to give the impression of dreamy inevitability. The glass palette that lay on the table beside him was dotted with pools of sienna and cerulean blue softened with heavy doses of titanium white. He blended them on the canvas, keeping his wrist supple as he followed the vision in his head. Normally, he didn’t do portraits anymore. That hadn’t been the case when he’d started out. For the group shows where he’d first displayed his work, he’d stuck to easy-to-grasp, representative pieces like landscapes and portraits because there had been money in them. He’d been desperate to support his habit, so he’d done anything that would sell. The important paintings, the ones that were based on subjects only he could see, he’d kept private. He’d believed they were therapy, not art. He’d been wrong about that. Following his instincts had propelled him to a level of success that he couldn’t have conceived possible in his wildest dreams.
