Easter 1949

I have been making art all of my life but I didn't start painting seriously until 1985. Actually, I didn't know I was serious at the time, I just started this painting as a way of holding on, I suppose, since it was painted in my mothers apartment where I was caring for her as she was dying of cancer. It was painted from an old photograph that I found in a box. It is my Mom and my oldest brother in front of Saint Joseph's College which I believe is the one in Philadelphia. Amazingly, I went though my high school years of art without even being taught the color wheel and so when I started painting, I had no idea of how to use color, let alone mix it with oil paints. This painting is in black and white 1. because it was from a black and white photo,2. I didn't know how to use color at the time, and 3. I was so dirt poor, I could only come up with enough money to buy a canvas, a few brushes and a tube of black and a tube of white oils. I am primarily self taught as you can see in the crudeness of this painting. After so many years, I am a little better at what I do, yet this painting and some that I will share in the future, I feel are among my best work.