A Painting for My Mother
When I
was a little girl, my mother would always
stare at pictures of landscapes. She would keep them in her small wooden box
which we call la casa, a Spanish word
for home. (I don’t know why that antique wooden box is called that way.) She
would sigh and would wish for a bigger and nicer house, so that she would be
able to put those lovely landscape pictures on the walls.
Fast forward
2020. I made this painting for her. This is my very first painting on a canvas
so I decided to give it to her.
Sadly, due to
travel restrictions caused by Covid-19, I did not have a chance to give this to
her earlier.
September
2021, when travel restrictions were finally eased, she had a chance to come to
Metro Manila from our hometown which, by the way, is 15 hours away by bus. Fortunately, my brother-in-law has a car, so traveling
was more comfortable for her somehow. She arrived on a Monday, and due to my
work, I had no chance to go and visit her in my sister’s house right away. It was
my plan to go and visit her the following Saturday but—Tuesday, when she woke up from her afternoon
nap, she couldn’t talk anymore, and she couldn’t move the right side of
her body anymore. She had a high blood pressure stroke.
Wednesday, I
canceled all of my classes and I rushed to the city where she was staying. It was
only then that I could show this painting to her. She couldn’t talk, but her
eyes were alert. She could hear us, she could see us, she was aware of what was
happening. She touched the painting with her left hand and she looked at me. I
knew she liked it.
And oh… when
I was painting on this canvas, I learned, through my experience, that canvas
doesn’t absorb watercolor, and the colors appear too bright.
But anyway…
for a super beginner watercolor artist like me, I think it’s not that bad. And,
it’s for my mother, so I’m sure she thinks it’s perfect.
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