Tuesday, May 11, 2010

First Day of the rest of your life (24x36")


"First day of the rest of your life" (24x36") Oil on wood.
*SOLD*

9 comments:

Unknown said...

Nice...... !

Bruce Sherman said...

Hi again Mate!... Been waiting anxiously for "You" to surface with your newest...She's a beauty..She is too!

If only everyone in life... could find "that first day"... filled with the same feeling of peace and serenity that "You"have captured in this lovely piece. They certainly would find the rest of the journey... each and every day fruitful... fulfilling and rewarding.

"I" know that we share this knowledge my Friend. T'is the making of a happy life!

My best to "You" and your family Todd!

Good Painting!
Warmest regards,
Bruce

Unknown said...

There are some great design features in this one. The division between the water and sand color contrasts nicely with the division between reflection and cast shadow.

Todd Bonita said...

Frank,
Thanks so much my friend, always means a lot coming from you.
regards,
Todd

Todd Bonita said...

Bruce,
How be ye, me hearty?! Always warms me to hear from you my friend, thanks for the kind words. We definitely share a similar understanding of whats important in life...as a matter-of-fact, you will appreciate this I think..if you look closely at the numbers on the bow of this old boat they happen to be the date my son Max was born..and thus, the title, "First day of the rest of your life".
May the warmest of regards find ye and yours...you old salty scalliwag.
Todd

Todd Bonita said...

Jeremy,
Thank you my man, I have been following you for at least a few years now and have always respected your keen observations on other blogs and I'm grateful for you checking in here. Thank you for noticing and commenting. I tried a number of design efforts in this piece and I'm glad you picked up on some of them...This piece to me was about being middle-aged and having a child and then taking a moment to profoundly reflect on where I've been, where I am and where I'm going. It's not important for the viewer to know these details but for me, the guy painting it, it helped to serve as a launching pad to create a design that would support my intent. I got the idea from something I read about Andrew Wyeth...he felt by doing this it added another dimension and depth to a piece by having it be about something personal or evoke emotion in the creator. The viewer doesn't have to know what it is but hopefully a feeling comes across as a result...hopefully. The contrasting colors of the water and sand, as you point out, was for me a design tool to support my idea of coming to cross-roads. Not in the literary tradition of good and evil but more innocence and experience or quite literally, "I have a kid and I'm 40, the rest of my life is going to be different"...if you just look at the shape of the sand and water they almost make a yin-and-yang design...not trying to get too heavy here but I liked the design in my sketch first and for my purposes it served my intent as a tool to support the notion of a cross-road in life...note also how the boat is half in the water and half out...you get the picture. Above all, it had to work as a design first before I add all the psycho-babble symbolism...Anyhoot, I could go on-and-on but I'm beginning to bore myself and could only imagine how tiresome this must sound if you got this far. Thanks again for the comments Jeremy, I sincerely appreciate your input.
all the best,
Todd

Lee Ekland said...

I could go swimming in your golds and blues! Beautiful!

Bruce Sherman said...

Hey again Mate!... Enjoyed your comeback information re: Max and the symbolic references that your painting contains.

It was also interesting to "Me" to read your comment back to Jeremy regarding the elements of design and your thinking during the painting process.

"I" avoided getting into that type of comment simply because "I" sensed the importance of the title... the great(er) attention to detail and guessed that it had a great deal to do with the joy that a first child brings to every human being on this journey we call Life.

Wyeth was the beginning of everything important in my own artistic search for expression and Truth. The governance of his journey by the "presence" and teachings of his own father NC really say it all:
"The nut doesn't fall far from the tree."

Max is blessed to have you both as parents because "You" know the path... walk the path... live the Truth. All's well my Friend!

At 66 years... I've done a lot of walking... often facing a dead end... but "I" am still walking... searching... discovering more Truth each day...as "You" are. "I" wish "You" the same joy!

Warmest regards,
Bruce

PS Check out my blog... one of my own Max is featured... along with some East Coast Canada. We ARE indeed on parallel jouneys Todd!

Steve PP said...

These boat paintings of yours are amazing!