Dad's Paintings

My Dad grew up around painting - his Mum was a painter and a couple of Aunties also were very good painters. As a young boy he enjoyed drawing at school but never received any encouragement and as a result let that talent sit on the shelf for many years until...

At the age of 55 I attended an ‘Introduction to Water Colour’ series of painting classes. They ran only for 5 or 6 evenings, but I was delighted with the medium and after being encouraged by comments from the art teacher, including, “You have a real talent there. Why don’t you get some paints and a couple of brushes and see what you can do?”, I decided to buy some equipment and have a go.

Ariel

Wenderholm

Stillwater

Old Man

African Lady

Andubi's Father

This one is my favorite. There's a certain anonymity about the other portraits - the "Old Man", and the "African Lady", however this guy has a name (even though Dad couldn't remember it, he remembered his son's name Andubi.) [Update: his name is Ugumako]. It was someone Dad knew personally and perhaps that comes through in the painting. Maybe it's also that he is looking directly at us with an obvious happiness. He seems to be a very warm character. The lines on his face suggest a lot of laughter through the years. He's obviously seen a lot of life but seems very comfortable in his skin. Ali thinks he looks "scary", but I can't see that at all - just a beautiful Papuan man (New Guinea) with a great hairdo and an extra nipple on his forehead.

Anyway, I'm pretty proud of my Dad's talent with a brush so I wanted to share a little of it with you. Enjoy!

These paintings are all for sale. If you're interested in finding out more leave a comment and I'll get in touch with you.