The Rucksack of Life -- Finished

I'm a little ambivalent concerning the colours of the finished result (as for the motif, please see the previous week). I find the scale a little garish, a little Crayola Naïf, and can't decide whether its cheerfulness contrasts or actually goes quite well with the motif:

At some point (I think I've said this before, but this being post #180 or so of Paintstakingly...) one has to let go and let the work live its own life. The question is when.

One could try to be realistic, or even photosurrealistic, which is exciting for a little while (the Internet is teeming with the loyal puppies of Maestro Dalí) but I wondered what the point would be. Did the drawings suffice? Yes. Was there any point in adding shadows in absurdum? Nope. Does everything have to look like an oil or a photo, merely to please current taste (or lack thereof)? Nope. Then, thought I, we're ready to serve the dish.

Working digitally, some of the details started as thumbnail scribbles while I saw the whole on the screen; when you zoom in you see that the pen doesn't grip on the microscopical scale. It's not entirely bad; now you have the general form and one may discover new things if the pen is interpreting the lump freely. This became a cairn of sorts -- probably because I thought of hiking and rucksacks. I wonder what it is thinking about.

This part -- I started with a tree and ended up with rectangles -- is more difficult to explain. Perhaps what I do is children's drawings for adults who have to unlearn Understanding About Everything, as adults are prone to do. (This Understanding About Everything has created a perfectly confusing world, impossible to understand.)

A final look at the Rucksack!