christmas ‘24 destination spent with my people - thankful for the few days of quality family time, endless memories made, the many many laughs, and the beautiful view we were blessed with from our airbnb! enjoy a little watercolor I did while there, a breathtaking view from the Ozarks!
My new painting captures the chaotic yet heartwarming scene of a determined father I spotted cycling through the morning rush. He's juggling a lot—quite literally—with a baby strapped to his chest and a little girl perched in the bike's front basket.
Konishi Mansho (1600 - 1644), the last ordained priest to serve in Japan during the prohibition era of the Tokugawa Shogunate (think of the Shusaku Endo novel, "Silence", which was adapted to film by Martin Scorsese in 2016). Exiled from his homeland in 1614, he eventually made his way to Rome and enter a convent to be ordained as a priest. He would later to his home country to minister to the persecuted Christians there, only to be arrested and martyred in 1644. I tried to mimic a traditional ink painting style to invoke the melancholic feel of this homecoming journey.
Watercolour and the tiniest bit of coloured pencil and acrylic marker on watercolour paper. Size A4. Done with negative painting technique. This was inspired by a figure found in a Kinder egg from my daughter. It seems to be common sense these days to scan and fix your artwork digitally before posting it on any social media. I don't do that. I kind of like the little (or bigger) imperfections in my work, and I also believe that uploading traditional work that has been digitally fixed gives people the idea that such perfect pictures can be achieved in a traditional way.
