Sunday, December 26, 2010

Kaspar Hauser

Well it's time to finish off the paintings that I'm going to finish and file away the ones that I'm never going to! In a bid to speed this up I've been painting some small watercolours (rare for me) of painting ideas that won't (for various reasons) make it to oil-on-canvas.

This is called The First Emergence of Kaspar Hauser, and is about emergence, psychological and (in Kaspar's case) literal. It was inspired by the film of similar name about Kaspar, a German man who claimed to have grown up entirely in a windowless cell (or something like it). The picture shows a future of sorts, a reflection (inner) of angelic glory and happiness on one hand, and sadness on the other, perhaps of not being able to make it, and thus insecurity. That was the original idea anyway.

I've painted this about five times and it never matches the perfection of the idea sketch (above). It's so hard to translate those flurries of the brush or pencil, but this is the closest. It seems that the best way to do it is to move slowly and carefully, not with a flourish.

The colours are olive green, raw sienna, and black. I think I'd benefit from a sepia.