A portrait of my father

Since I've been digging them off the shelf....

This is one of the first portraits I did with oils on a larger sized canvas as well as one of the first portraits of my father (all in all, I painted close to 10 paintings of him before he passed on).

My father was diagnosed with cold agglutinin disease, which, simply put, is a disease affecting the body's ability to produce red blood cells. In cold weather, the disease causes the antibodies to bind and coagulate the red blood cells excessively, creating poor circulation and eventual organ failure.

There is no cure, but treatment is simple--stay out of cold weather. Simple enough unless you were my father, who spent most his waking hours on his feet and outside. The disease forced its way into his lifestyle and pushed him to change everything he valued in life: nature, the farm, a soft winter snow. To say it caused major disruption and dischord in the rhythym of his life would be an understatement.

This portrait was painted from pictures I took of him in the corner of a room in our old farm house, a room the family affectionately referred to as "the red room".