Picture of the Day

I saw a few pieces I liked at an art gallery this weekend, which led me to this question:

(I'll get to the question)

This was one of the paintings I liked (it was huge, five feet by three feet):

I once got fixated on a close-up picture of a gorilla at the Old Town Art Fair a couple of years ago because it looked like the gorilla had a lot on his mind. And this seagull painting kind of captured the same thing.

It especially caught my attention because I had once tried to get a similar image of a seagull a couple of years ago (but I couldn't zoom in as far as I liked.)

I'm fascinated by urban birds. They have absolutely no fear of people. A big group of them nest under the bridge at Diversey harbor, and even when huge crowds of people congregate out there, the seagulls just go about their business like nothing is out of the ordinary.

I'd hang this painting up in my apartment, but I imagined it took a very long time to paint and would cost a lot more than I can afford.

I looked at the tag just in case:

I loved the title! It added even more to the painting. But unfortunately, it would take me a long time to make $2,800. And since my job is extremely boring, I'd probably buy that painting and look at it hanging on my wall and think to myself, "Was this painting really worth three weeks off?"

(An unfortunate side effect of having a boring job that pays by the hour is that you think of every potential purchase in terms of how much time off you could take if you didn't buy it.)

So I didn't buy the painting, but I took a picture of it. And I wondered: What if I took my picture of it and printed it out and hung it up in my apartment (along with a picture of the title, and maybe even a small version of my original picture of the seagull on the beach) and then sent the artist a small donation? (very small, like $10)

How would the artist feel about that?