a painting

I painted this for a friend's 21st which was celebrated in the weekend. It's a view from up the lookout at the end of Moeraki township, which is one of my favourite places. I love it for its beauty (and paintability) and also I feel an affection towards it, for the memory of my first family holidays, times with my grandparents, and it always seems to be sunny when I go there...
I didn't really know whether it would hold any significance for our friend, but it turned out that he had spent some special time there too, which was awesome.
I had kind of stopped doing landscapey-seascapey paintings like this. I got to art school and it seemed like it wasn't "real" art or something. But when I did one recently I realised that I love it, and that's why I did it. I had such fun doing this painting, it was relaxing, I listened to some excellent music (The Frames) and felt a sense of achievment when I finished. Maybe it is artwork without a massive purpose and drive behind it, but I am coming to understand that it's not that important to me. Art is such a subjective thing. I don't really think there is any point in comparing, marking it, even. Everybody comes with their own set of criteria to judge it - why would I set out to make the work somebody else - not me - wants to see? If I start to do that I am missing the point entirely, I think, and failing to learn what I want to learn.