Tuesday, July 29, 2008

First day of the rest of your life


I finished this oil painting last week and I am just getting around to posting it. it was a commission for a fellow who turned 40 on July 20, 2008. I put his birth date on the boat where the boat ID number would normally go. He is from Massachusetts and the boat tags in Mass always start with "MS" and then the number. In this case, "M" and "S" happen to be the initials of this man and his wife (the one who commissioned the painting) Perfect! Just for fun, I added the initials of his two sons in Morse code somewhere in the painting ("N" and "T") can you find them? The most important thing to me is the finished piece, it trumps the intentional placement of added elements like dates, Morse code and initials. In this case it just happened to work out.

This boat is from Chatham, Mass (on Cape Cod) and is resting on shore in the early morning hours, about 6am. The sun is beginning to rise from the east and casts a reflective shine as this boat begins a new morning. This element helped to give this painting it's title and the appropriate message to any man turning 40.

Overall, I am really pleased with the minimal pallet and the warm and understated feel of this painting. There are a lot of dabs of paint on this that I feel helps to add interest to the surface and unify the piece.
If you would like to commission a painting, feel free to shoot me an email at tmbonita@gmail.com. Click the image for a larger view.

4 comments:

Elena said...

You have some lovely work here. I like this one.
Ciao, Elena :)

Todd Bonita said...

Thanks Elena,
Always good to get cheers from my Australian friends. All the best to you,
Todd

Mike Corcoran said...

Really nice piece Todd.
I love the little hidden treasures.
I think I found the "N" & "I".

Mike

Todd Bonita said...

Thanks Mike..good for you for finding it...hint..it's in blue in the shadow of the bow. After I photographed this for the blog, I decided to make them more evident so I painted the dots and dashes on each oar (of course this is not visible in the version I have posted here..Great fun non the less).