Influential Loss
The second painting in my 'Rememberance' series is, Influential Loss. Losing a mother is damaging on so many levels and it really doesn't matter how old someone is, there will always be those times when you need a mother. It's crucial for young children to have a mother as it is for a young mother to have a mother. To lose someone of importance, someone who has had a huge affect on your life is to say the least, devestating. I had wanted to paint something that I knew would reflect just exactly how I feel when I think of how much I miss my mother. I couldn't really think of a way to portray in a visual sense the feelings and emotions that so often overwhelm me when I feel the lack of a mother in my life.
One day while browsing the web I saw this photo that touched me, and I just knew it had to be my next reference photo. I looked up the photographer and asked for permission to use her photo. It was my first time asking a photographer to use their photo, as I normally just use one of my sibling's photos or my own. It turned out that she was a wonderful person to talk to and had never had an artist request to paint her photos before. All new ground for the both of us. She asked for a print in return for the photo and I went straight to work. To keep within the guidelines I had set for myself for the series, I painted it in oils. I wouldn't be able to tell you excatly how long it took me to paint but, it was complete in a couple of days. However, being oils and having painted it in the method of wet on wet it took forever to dry. In fact, it sat there for three weeks before it was dry enough for me to scan. You can well imagine how I was dying to show it to you all, and especially the photographer Karen Osdieck. But I knew it would be far more worth it to get a clear and professional scan of the painting than it would to take a grimy shot of it with my ipod. In retrospeck, I would do the same thing all over again as the clarity of the scan is amazingly acurate. That is probably the best part to painting on canvas paper. It means that I don't need to fiddle around with frustrating camera's to get the perfect shot of my work. I'm no photographer, even if some of my siblings are.
So I finally had a scan and print! I was so excited and nervous to show Karen my representation of her photo. So many thoughts were going through my head like, what if she hated the colour? Maybe she was expecting an acurate portrayal to her son? Well, you get the gist. I was more than a little scared to show her. But I also couldn't wait to hear her response. So when she told me that it was so beautiful it brought tears to her eyes, it brought tears to my own! Ah! The flood of relief and excitement had reached it's peak in me. It was the perfect moment of success. One that made me realize that this is why I love painting. Well, one of the reasons.
This painting is very special to me as it not only speaks directly to my own heart, but the fact that I was also able to meet someone and get to know them was pretty sweet. My mom was some one who touched so many lives. Her charisamtic charisma charmed her way into many hearts and still to this day has the ability to influence lives even through her death. I will always feel her loss in my life, but I also know that because of her influence in my life, whatever I do and the choices I make, will still be affected by her.
