Old Fishing Boat Returning Home to Casa – Acrylic painting by Alexander “Rio” Rodríguez
Painted on October 4, 2024
I was having a conversation with my mother in August of 2024 shortly after her 89th birthday. She had a beautiful painting on her bedroom wall of a beach looking past a gate almost like the viewer was entering a beach from an access road. I noticed that she had pasted a picture of a palm tree that was cut out of a magazine. I asked her, “mom, why did you add a palm tree to this painting?”
She explained that she had seen this image in a dream and was trying to “finish” the painting that she had seen in her dream. She was hoping to add figures representing her children when they were young and herself walking in the distance.
The more I thought about it, I couldn’t help thinking that I should try and finish this painting for her. I’d never picked up a paint brush before though I had always enjoyed sketching, drawing and doodling.
That night I went looking online and found a beginner’s painting course by Malcolm Dewey. Malcolm is a great teacher and he walks his students on how to draw the fishing boat on a canvas using the box method. He covers composition, atmospheric perspective and color theory.
The painting you see on this page was painted a few weeks later. I had no idea what I was doing but Malcolm is an amazing teacher and after some time researching paints, brushes and going through the course — here is the result. I’m really happy with the way this turned out.
I had always wanted to paint – I had admired a painting that a paternal uncle had painted and that my father had in his living room. I guess that many years after admiring that painting, all I needed was a little push to get started on my own painting journey.
I’m grateful to my mom for kickstarting this journey, my friends who always encourage me (Kate and Madrina – I’m thinking about you) and God for blessing me with the courage of always exploring His gifts to me.
I’ve got a couple of in progress photos of my version of the fishing boat project below. The first step was drawing the fishing boat from a reference and then using the box method to draw the boat again on the canvas. Here you see my pen sketch then doing the drawing again on heavy acrylic paper covered with burnt sienna. I sketched the composition that I wanted with mountains in the distance, a floating buoy, sailboats in the distance and a wake on a paper before painting this on a 9×12 acid-free paper taped to my easel.
So what about my mom’s painting…. I’m still working on some seascapes but my goal is to do that painting for my mom’s 90th birthday. Shhhhh – don’t spoil the surprise. Smile.
Bio: my name is Alex and I’ve recently started on a journey to explore how to paint in Acrylics after many years where I limited myself to drawing in pencil and pen. I’ve always enjoyed drawing and sketching but started painting with Acrylic in August of 2024. I plan to explore airbrushing, digital painting and fluid/dutch pours in the future.
I hope you like my paintings. If you interested in purchasing one of my paintings, contact me at art@rodspace.com.
Provenance: current held by the artist.
Pigments and support: Burnt sienna, Titanium white, Phthalocyanine blue, Permanent magenta, Naphthol Red Light, Yellow ochre, Lemon yellow, Cerulean blue, Ultramarine blue, and Cadmium orange. This acrylic painting was painted on acid-free 9×12 acrylic 400 g/m2 paper which was double primed with white gesso.
