Prodigal Daughter

Oil on canvas, 20×20″, 2026
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A companion piece to my painting Prodigal, this piece focuses on a wayward daughter who has “come to herself”, as the New Testament parable says, and has returned home, penitent.

Major differences:

• This take on the classic parables tries to depict the story from the woman’s viewpoint.
• It was important to me to not show a rich mother running to her impoverished daughter, as with the father in the parable of the prodigal son. Instead, I wanted to show a hard-working mother in the fields, without hesitation putting all aside to welcome home her daughter. We all struggle/pray for our children and/or grandchildren while we are working on our own lives, especially the mothers and grandmothers.
• Here, there is no obedient son or daughter with which to draw later contrast. I wanted the story to remain on the reborn daughter and the joy of the moment.

Process:

The gallery below shows the creation process after the image is sketched in pencil on canvas. Loose strokes and color block-ins get refined, step by step. The painting process took 16 hours over three weeks. The concept and reference gathering processes took much longer.