My dad’s birthday is coming up at the end of the month and since he’s been so wonderfully supportive of my art, I wanted to make a painting for him of something that inspires *him* as much as art inspires me. For him, that’s the Dominican Republic.
For the last few years he’s been traveling there with my mom and their church group to volunteer in a village near Sosua. They’ve helped repair a roof, rounded up medicine supplies to bring over from Canada, bought new mattresses for many of the local families – generally just do whatever needs to be done. I’m so proud of them both.
The painting was inspired by a photo I found on Flickr:
I had a little trouble getting the shacks to look right, so eventually I painted over them with the little houses. In fact, the whole thing took far more time than was probably necessary as I added more and more layers. i wanted a lot of texture in the water and in the rocks. I wanted lots of colors in the sky and lots of shiny glaze in both the water and the sky. And finally I wanted to paint the edges so it wouldn’t need to be framed. I didn’t realize I should’ve done this FIRST! I got more blue on the front of the painting, had to go back in and add more glaze…doh!
There are still things I’d like to change about it, but the birthday boy must get his present! So off it goes.
I wonder if I’ll ever finish a painting and actually be satisfied. I’m always satisfied with the process itself; I love painting and feel so much joy just swirling the paint around the canvas. But my painting skills haven’t quite reached the level the perfectionist in me would like them to. It may be a lifelong pursuit. And I’m OK with that.