Family Portrait
This is where it (re)started in 2024. I bought a canvas and started painting again, and I loved it...
Early Sketch
So back in 2024, my youngest was 5, turning 6 and then you slowly find yourself having a bit more time. Also the living room had a wall that desparately needed some decoration and so I bought this big canvas of 150 x 50 cm and started doing some sketches. I asked to everyone in the family what it should contain and my wife said nature/green (can’t remember the exact words), my daughter wanted a heart in it and my sun demanded something from Star Wars…
I made the sketch as displayed here, where I mostly liked the leaves in all forms and shades of green.
Getting started
Then the actual painting began. I of course redid most of the dark lines at the bottom and started with the branch. While drawing on the canvas I already realized I liked the composition better if the entire left side would contain wood/tree, so I changed that bit. Was sad to lose the mountains, but it just felt better. I first spent quite some time on painting the wood, but I wasn’t happy about it and had doubts if I was ever going to be happy with the result…
Using real bark
Walking in the forests near Haarlem then obviously made me look and study the bark and then it struck me: I could easily just get some from the ground and take it home! I started collecting the pieces of bark and at home tried to lay them on the canvas and I was immediately super happy. That was gonna create such a weird contrast with the abstract form and colour of the leaves. I loved it.
The Death Star
Well the robin turned into a ‘Hop’ and the moon got a lot more detail then I ever plannned, but it all worked out nicely and somehow. And yeah, the Death Star kind of adds a bit of drama to it, but it was either that or Darth Vader, so that was an easy choice.
But after this one was done I really discovered that I needed to pick up painting again and do more. So this painting feels like the ressurection of my artist alter-ego ‘3C’ I guess.