I grew up on a street where we could see the diademe every day. It is such a common picture in the background of our daily routine that we almost forgot it is there, gorgeous, and so impressive.
I know… can’t see me! Most of the research work was done at that point. This is the easy part. Tracing the drawing onto the watercolor paper.
The shape of the mountain depicted is the very recognizable diademe of Tahiti.
I had to use it for this painting.
The bungalow depicted on the left of the picture is part of happy memories, taken from one of our frequent trip to Moorea. We call it a “fare”. We did not stay in that one, but it was behind the one we stayed at.
Il ya papa qui arrose son jardin et maman avec son coco. My parents are part of the picture as they are part of my life.
This part was actually fun to do. It was almost like filling up each square with a color. I used bright colors, lots of green, blues, yellow, reds…
We were lucky enough to have gone to Tahiti at the time when they had a lot of things going on to celebrate the independence, le 14 Juillet. You can count on seing lots of arts and crafts, dances, costumes, and hearing a lot of music, “otea”, drums, songs, 2 to 3 weeks of fiesta.
Close to the Tiurei, the celebrations for the 14th of July, sometimes, children and women from a district will get together and practice some dances, then they come at the main place in Papeete and present their show. It’s a lot of fun. Sometimes I like it better than the professional shows.
Watch the smile on this dancer, no fancy costumes, in every day clothes she dances. This is what is the joy of dancing.
The painting is done. Itwas a pleasure to do.
