Sadly, she gave up painting, and this might be the last one she ever completed. Mind you, nothing in particular happened to make her give it up, just life in general. I'm hopeful that one day when her children are older, she'll pick it back up.
I’ve always liked this painting. It’s like a snapshot of what she thought of me at the time: I’m at the top of my castle tower, workin’ my mojo in the sky, surrounded by flower gardens and sailing ships. There are some other telling details you can’t see in this scan: the sun has a smiley face she created by texturing the paint, the tops of the towers and the doors to the outer curtain wall are painted in gold, and those doors are guarded by two Ewoks (yes, Star Wars Ewoks).
The ringed planet visible inside the atmosphere at the upper left was a standard inclusion in her works, whether drawn or painted, serving almost as a second signature. I always marveled at her ability to paint skies, etc., as this is something I do not have the skill for. I do okay with miniatures, but creating my own compositions and putting them to canvas just intimidates the crap out of me, which is another reason I think it’s sad that my sister doesn’t paint anymore.
Note that she didn’t have any pictures of castles or sailing ships to work from, so she approximated both. The internet and World Wide Web barely existed at the time: this was 1989, after all, and getting to a web site, any web site, was a two step process involving dialing a phone number. Heavens to CrapCat, now I've done the math on how long it's been. Yikes.
Also note that the sails on the sailing ship are backwards. I teased her about that, of course, and ultimately we decided the ship was simply in reverse and backing out of the harbor. Didn’t know sailing ships had reverse, did you? Argh, matey: let’s back’er up and head fer the pub!
So, what does my youngest son have to say about this? "You used to have it hanging in the bathroom and I used to look at it while I went poo."
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