Paint

I often wish that I painted more. I am not very good at it, but since I have some semblance of an idea as to how, I believe I should at least try. Through my recently completed painting, I have learned that I am a person who likes to take his time: I began the piece in the summer of 2011 and just finished last week. You would think that this implies that I have a masterpiece of sorts on my hands… unfortunately what I've really got is a hodgepodge of sloppy brush strokes which was a process of both learning and relearning the basic fundamentals of how to paint the entire time. Several whiskies, Johnny Cash albums, and hours passed in the basement later, I finally finished this beast of a project. By my math, at this rate Ive got about 30 more in me until I kick it, and I am shooting for perhaps my 15^th or 20^th to begin to resemble something like a work of a person who truly knows what they are doing.

A gold plated ornate frame makes all the difference.
I stole a Renoir to get this one.

Churchill (whose book I have also been reading for 2 years) reflected once that he wished he could have been a painter, if only to have left the world something tangible upon his passing - I think we are all better off that Churchill did not choose painting as his vocation and that others whose place he may have taken (Dali perhaps?) were not at the helm of the British Empire's war machine during WWII, but I can’t help but admit I share the same thoughts sometimes as Winnie. My dad was a painter, and left behind dozens of paintings which I feel to this day serve as one of the most meaningful links we have. I feel like I can glimpse his personality in them. I feel like in some small way I know how he was feeling when he was working on them. 

Should I feel the same way? Will I one day have a son that only knows me through the paint that I have smeared on a canvas? It is doubtful, but nonetheless, makes me feel a bit of an underachiever at having made so little of an effort.