Family Canoe

This painting is one of the first attempts at a painting I made for my sister and her family. I'll ask my sister to take a snap of the painting i eventually gave them so you can compare this one and the final version.

This one has a higher viewpoint of the family in the canoe than i cared for. The lower viewpoint in the final version looked more like the perspective of the rear paddler in the canoe. I'm not completely satisfied with the cropping in the final version. But i was under a deadline, so i ran with it

The purpose of the painting was to create a family vision for my sister and her family. Bonnie and Troy adopted two little girls from Ghana. But the Canadian government was dragging their heels granting the girls visas. So the little girls and thus at least one of the adopting parents also had to wait in Africa for the visas to be granted. This painting was meant to be a reinforcing vision of the whole family together in Canada, in a canoe.

Update - Dec 19/08

Here is the version of the painting that i gave to the family. As you can see, it's certainly less abstract and the perspective is a little lower and the girls seem closer. Probably more like you'd see if you were actually in the canoe. It's funny the people look transparent and the water looks more opaque. It should probably be the other way around, seeing how water is usually pretty see through. I wish there was some slight difference between the inside sides of the canoe and the bottom of it. I wouldn't have cropped it so tightly if i could change that too. Oh well, live and learn.

Dawson City Meeting

This painting was meant to be a wedding gift for our friends Davy and Zoe. It didn't turn out to my liking, so they've never seen it. I believe it was the summer of 2007 that they got married and the painting was started. This photo of the painting has better colour saturation and pop than the actual painting, so i quite like the photo of the painting.
It's my understanding that Davy and Zoe met in Dawson City at an annual music festival that is held there. Initially i wanted to incorporate an elephant to represent Davy, who is Indian, and a moose to represent Zoe, who is from New Brunswick, the big red and white tent that is set up at the music festival, and this red hotel from a picture i found of main street Dawson City. I think they met in a bar, but i don't know if it was this hotel's bar or not? Odds are not. Dianne didn't like the idea of the animals representing people, and was worried Zoe wouldn't find being portrayed as a moose amusing. So i settled for this design with the hotel and the big tent.

I quite like this photo of the painting, so i may go back and try the painting again but make sure it's just as saturated as this photo. I'm also going to work on the original concept of incorporating the moose, maybe doing a yoga pose and with a binder dot, and with an elephant too. I quite like the idea of putting two animals together that definitely don't have the same geography to represent two people in harmony with different backgrounds.

I'll make some sketches and blog my progress.