Mom

Mom, 11" x 14", acrylic

Blog 32

Today is my mother’s 85th birthday which I cannot spend with her. Therefore, I want to dedicate this blog to my mom, the strong person who was one of the first people who worked in a home office to combine career and motherhood. She worked more than full-time as a right hand to my father in building up his architecture firm. Nevertheless, she always had a warm meal on the table when my sister and I came from school and looked after the household all by herself.

My sister and I often complained about how much she worked, but as typical kids, we didn’t offer to help either. My mother is a perfectionist, and my sister and I would not perform the tasks to her standard, or so we told ourselves. As a mother of two now adult children, I can't imagine how she managed to keep going without taking any time for herself.

When I saw a picture of my mom as a young child in a photograph from the 1940s, I was intrigued to create her portrait even though I am usually not interested in painting portraits. I hardly even capture people in my paintings or the photographs I take.

I always feel that we see ourselves in a very different way from other people. We often are our harshest critics. We complain about our bodies but would never say the same about another person because we often look for our faults while others look for our best attributes.

In the sepia and soft white photo, my mother wore a beautiful dress and an oversized white bow in her bob-style hair to dress her up for a professional photo shoot. While I usually love colours, restricting my palette was as much a challenge as capturing the likeness of my mom.

I am still happy with the result after all these years. However, although I have sketched my mother various times, I have not painted her another time - probably, because it was easier to capture her in her past than in her present.

left: drawing from photo, right: live sketch during a trip

Today, I am thankful my mother is still part of my present. Many of my friends are already motherless. I cherish our time together even though we are physically apart, which is much easier in the area of virtual platforms.

I wish my mom the happiest of birthdays and many years ahead. Herzlichen Glückwunsch zum Geburtstag, Mutti!

Mom

Blog 18

With Mother’s Day only two days away, I would like to tell you a little bit about the story behind my 11” x 14” acrylic painting “Mom”, portraying my mother at the age of a young kindergarten girl. I painted this artwork for the Arteast exhibition “Rearview Mirror” in 2005. It is one of few paintings that I painted in black and white. I love colours and restricting my palette was rather hard for me.

The photograph I used as a reference was taken in the early 1940s. It was printed as a postcard for sending to relatives. My mother wore a nice dress with a small print, possibly flowers, white socks, ankle boots, and a big white bow in her hair. It must have been hard for her to sit still for the photo session at this young age. In another photo from the session, which I only saw later, you see that her fists are balled even though she is smiling at the camera.

My reference photo was rather sepia than black and white. I am not sure if the photo always looked like this or if the colour changed over the decades.

When I read the rules for the exhibition, I immediately wanted to paint my mother’s portrait because the exhibition theme “Rearview Mirror” resonated with me as a view into the past. The old fashioned portrait was just perfect. I also wanted to challenge myself as I had not painted many portraits before and always felt that “they were not my thing”.


 

As I have not seen many other photos of my mother as a child and did not have any others in my possession, I had to rely on this sole photograph. Usually, I like to have a couple of reference photos to take what is best out of them to create my painting. I found it quite difficult to get the right shades so that my mother looked natural even though I did not use a black from the tube. Pure black is rather cold and better suited for abstract or comic style paintings. I always mix different darks with Payne's Grey, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine and Cobalt Blue, sometimes adding Alizarin Crimson. At the end, I even added some Cadmium Red to add just a touch of colour, hardly enough to make it a pink.

I know my mom really likes the painting, and I am still happy with it after all these years. As for painting portraits, I still find them very challenging and after one failed attempt (not a bad painting but just not what the person expected) will stick to portraits of family members. I need to know the persons well to feel comfortable painting them, and to be able to capture their character.

For all of you who are mothers, I wish you a “Happy Mother’s Day”. If you are lucky like me to still have your own mother in your life , I hope you will be able to spend a couple of memorable hours together.

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