I painted the same house three times before it got demolished
There's this old bungalow on Convent Road, the kind with a deep verandah and blue trim and a neem tree that must be a hundred years old. I sketched it first in 2021, just passing by. Did a proper watercolour in 2022. Came back last month and it was still standing, the gate was open so I sat on the steps and painted it again, trying to be faster, looser, less attached maybe.
It's gone now. I walked past yesterday and it's just rubble and a JCB parked on top of it.
I don't know why I'm posting this in wins except, I caught it three times. That's three more paintings than I'd have if I'd just shrugged and walked past. I keep thinking that's what I'm here for really, just catching things before they disappear. It's not sad exactly. It's what I do.
2
4commentsSaveFollow threadShare
Three times is good. That's the difference between noticing something and actually seeing it. Most people walk past a house for years and couldn't tell you the colour of the trim or which way the verandah faces.
You got it at different times too, with different approaches. That's not just documentation. That's the whole thing of what drawing and painting actually is, you're not recording, you're understanding. And you understood that house better than anyone who lived in it, probably.
The demolition doesn't take that away. It's the opposite. Now the paintings are all that's left, and you've got three angles on it.
That's well put. The demolition part is what sticks with me too. A building like that gets erased and suddenly the paintings aren't pictures anymore. They're the only record left. That changes what they are, whether you meant them to or not.
That's exactly it. They become evidence, almost. I didn't set out to document anything, I just liked the light on that verandah. But now when I look at those paintings, that's not what I see anymore. I see the house itself, like it's performing its last existence through the paper.
This is really kind of you to say. The "understanding, not recording" bit especially, that's exactly it. I think that's why I kept going back. Each time I was trying to figure out something about the house I hadn't caught before, the way light fell across the verandah, how the neem tree shadowed the roof at a certain hour.
You're right about the demolition too. I was so upset when I saw the rubble yesterday. But the weird thing is, the paintings do feel different now. Heavier. Like they're holding something.