The Rucksack of Life -- Work in Progress

I can thank friend Cecilia for helping me to come up with this idea, sadly not a finished work yet. Many other things have been on the illustrator's mind; commercial works that one can't show to you, at least not yet, trying to make a somewhat neglected dinghy ready for sea, recording with the little orchestra et al. Anyhow we had this conversation on the Rucksack of Life. What we carry with us in the form of experience and feelings, from early childhood and all the way up, never truly leaves us. It's the content, some good and some bad, of an ever expanding rucksack that we have to carry all the way up.

(Somewhere, I think, it grows so large that you can't carry it yourself -- that's where you need friends and support.)

I've modelled the bag on a very popular children's rucksack, I had one and most other Swedes react to it with nostalgia. In my case it's hiking with the family in the mountains... There are large varieties for grownups too. My little trick here -- which'll hopefully look better with the landscape put in -- is to let perspective work on everything but the bags (so that they'll grow on us). As for the rest of the landscape I am slowly gaining ideas, and there is still room for plenty of surprises in it.

Here is how it started out; a sketch among others... Sketching and thinking I've always considered being the most important part of the work. This, and being a little mindless.

With a little luck I'll finish this work next week. Stay tuned.