Malta Still on Our Minds: Canadian Retiree Paints Historic Scenes
Editor Note: Many of the interests and skills acquired in our youth, often come into play as we get older. Here, John Scerri, a retired woodwork teacher who was born in Hamrun, Malta, and settled in a suburb of Toronto in the 1980s, continues to woodwork and has taken up a new skill: painting. Here is his story:
We have been in Canada close to 33 years now, and after my early retirement eight years as ago, I continued woodworking honing my skills from my teaching career in Malta.
We still live in the first house we bought in Mississauga, but since I lack the proper space for a workshop (I do not have a garage and work in the shed in my backyard), I have to stop enjoying myself with this pastime during the long Canadian winter.
My wife came up with the suggestion I take up painting. I purchased a few tubes of acrylic paints and started copying a couple of photographs I had taken during my vacations. Even though I am well versed in perspective (I taught industrial arts in Malta) and in cutting straight lines between walls and ceilings when I redecorate, I lacked expertise such as mixing colours. I also needed to learn painting techniques.
I visited the Visual Arts Mississauga website online and saw that they offered adult courses in acrylics painting. Now, I am already through my third course with artist Layal Annan, who helped me on with my techniques and now treats me as an artist!
I use both stretched canvas and board as my supports, preferring to work on smooth MDF 24 X 12 which I seal with black gesso, transfer the picture, block in plain background and from there add coats of paint, blend, and then add details and shading. My style is realism and my preferred subject is Maltese scenes from the past taken from old photos, etchings, and antique paintings. I like to paint historical buildings as they existed a hundred years ago or more, especially those which no longer exist. A good example is the Fleur-de-lys aqueduct archway which the British tore down in the 1930s.
ARTICLE
On the MALTESE LINK, a newsletter issued by the FEDERATION OF MALTESE LIVING ABROAD - April 2011
In May 2010, I visited an exhibition of paintings by Edward Caruana Dingli at the Palace in Valletta, and while in the corridors, I took a set of eight photographs of frescos of Maltese scenes which exist above the windows in semi-circular spaces. After I manipulated the pictures in Photo Shop and straightened them because of the angle, I managed to paint the entire set by the end of last year.
Although I am slowing down in physical work, I know that I have found something to keep me sane and ward off senility in my retirement.
John Scerri
