To not know what to do about this gift :(

[Ifyourawizardwhydouwearglasses]

Oh dear :(

There is a photo in our house of me and my old dogs on the hills behind the house. It's been missing lately but I didn't notice it until recently. I love it and its one of my favourite pics ever.

Anyway, DH came in the other day with a large package. It was a painting of the picture. As a gift for me. It's a LOVELY thought......but the painting is terrible.

It's just....really bad. It looks like a gcse art project. At best.
I look like a weeble and the dogs are just awful - they could be any chocolate labs. In fact, you can't even tell they're labs. They're just brown dogs with back legs that don't bend properly. It looks like a child did it :(
God I feel awful saying this.

I can't even look at it because its a scene that is so personal to me, which has been totally spoiled.
He hasn't had a bill yet from the 'artist' but I'm sure it'll be eye watering.

The artist in question is a family friend (I don't know them, friend of his parents) so to return is as being substandard would cause huge offence all round.

Wtf do I do!?
Obviously I've said thank you very much etc, and I am SO touched by the thought of it, honestly I'm not ungrateful of the sentiment.

But what do I do with the thing? Should I be honest? He said 'its not brilliant is it...?' and he looked so disappointed.

:(

I quite like it too pictish (I draw a lot and I love the lines of skeletons!)
Auction it off on MN!

To be honest, it's not so much the skeleton that bothers me...I'm quite drawn to the macabre in art and have painted sheep skulls that I salvaged from walks, on the mantlepiece, and a Mexican day of the dead Catrina figurine as well. I understand why she thought we'd like it. I think it's just the whole 'grave' vibe it has. It's a bit Moors Murders.

Ah, I get what you mean, like with your reaction when you first saw it!

Anyone else interested in seeing blues picture. (Not marking place at all)

Me! I want to see all the pictures mentioned

while we are waiting for more contributions

When DH and I got married, we invited our next door neighbour along but she couldn't come as she couldn't get time off work so she offered to look after our cat etc whilst we were away/on our mini-moon. When we got back, she presented us with a very intricate floral cross-stitched sampler sort of thing with our names on and the date of the wedding etc. It was a really nice thought but she got the date on it wrong!!! Rather than tell her and hurt her feelings, I went and bought some matching thread and redid the wrong date myself. Luckily this was just a matter of changing a '4th' to a '1st'.
As I was working as a picture framer at the time, I had it beautifully framed but knew I'd never actually hang it up. It's still in our bedroom down the side of the wardrobe (we moved house away from the neighbour in question 6 years ago). I won't get rid of it but can't hang it up!

I am suddenly feeling very lucky, my sister is an artist and her drawings/paintings of peoples dogs are good.

I also would like to see all the pictures mentioned.

at Pictish

Yes, pictish, on first glance that very much says 'Bronze Age Burial' to me, but I can see that without the historical slant it has more of an 'Under The Patio' vibe...

honorary, That sketch is dodgy, for sure But my goodness, your sons are beautiful!

Pictish -
archeological dig a cist burial with grave goods? kind of fits with your name
but I just cant imagine where that picture would fit in the house?

I won a picture painted by a colleague in a raffle at work. It looked quite good as a photo, which toned down the colours but when presented to me is astonishingly dayglow. If it was just a little more subtle I would hang it up, its really good but the brightness jars a bit. Am trying to decide whether to apply something to tone it down or leave it to develop a patina of some kind

I can understand why she painted it. It's interesting.
I just saw it through other people's eyes coming into my home though. It's miserable for a family home.
It's 4 ft by 3 so there's really nowhere to hang it bar the bedroom, and err...no.

You don't have a cellar to hang it in then?!

pictish - at the link, not looked through them all yet but tempted to submit some of mine I did at school!
btw, I think your picture is good because I see it from the archaeology point of view, might frighten the DGC tho!

Think I overdid the 's there

Didactylos could you frame it under slightly tinted glass to take the edge off?

Honory, that's an unusual picture. please say it was a freebie

Londonrach, I have been waiting all day to see Blues picture also!

I rather like Pictish's painting.

my first thought was to take up smoking and get that dark patina
but tinted glass is an elegant solution!

You say "old dogs"? I assume you no longer have them? This could be your saving grace.
My dad had a dog he adored, and my aunt, who fancies herself as a bit of an artist but really isn't, painted him a picture of said dog for his birthday. It was TERRIBLE. Aside from it being totally non-identifiable as a Labrador, or even a dog, she painted bright yellow staring eyes that looked like something out of a horror film and followed you round the room.
But he duly hung it up as she had gone to such effort etc etc
Sadly, the dog died about a year later - he took the picture down and put it in the loft.
He told my aunt he could handle photos as that was like having memories of the "real" dog but anything else was too upsetting. She was fine with it.
In reality, he said the only upside to losing his dog was that it gave him an excuse to lose the terrible picture.
If you can't bring yourself to hide it completely, could you hang it in the loo or something so you don't have to look at it all day?

I'm trying my best but It's not happening.

once more

Oh my giddy aunt!

That was definitely worth the wait!!