A Painting for My Mother

By -Elizabeth D. Andres

 



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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