The Woodsman and the Serpent.

For my third painting, I was going to do a modern, mixed-media take on the house from Hansel and Gretel. For time's sake, I am going to put this idea aside and focus on portraiture. The two paintings I've done for this study have both turned out to be deeply rooted in expressive portraiture --I'm thinking of Elizabeth Peyton as a strong, relevant source. Representation has turned out to be one of my bigger strengths in the work I create, and with Ferdinand I am slowly learning to depict subjects not only through the contour outlines I'm used to sketching out, but through various and unexpected colors. I got the opportunity to see the Impressionism show at the De Young this past weekend and it really fueled me to use color as liquid emotion for these characters.

I was looking through fables to use for my next piece, and I came across The Woodsman and the Serpent.

One wintry day a Woodsman was tramping home from his work when he saw something black lying on the snow. When he came closer he saw it was a Serpent to all appearance dead.
But he took it up and put it in his bosom to warm while he hurried home.
As soon as he got indoors he put the Serpent down on the hearth before the fire. The children watched it and saw it slowly come to life again. Then one of them stooped down to stroke it, but thc Serpent raised its head and put out its fangs and was about to sting the child to death.
So the Woodsman seized his axe, and with one stroke cut the Serpent in two. "Ah," said he, "there is no gratitude from the wicked."

The "Woodsman" is a pivotal character in many of these strange stories. He is often times a short apparition in the midst of someone else's story (Red Riding Hood, for instance), and his role is minute (kill the wolf). I found the focus on the Woodsman himself intriguing, as if I was getting to read Harry Potter from Dumbledore's perspective (end nerdiness). The woodsman's effort to save the snake is a deeply romantic and resonant gesture. This tale is completely anthropomorphic to me. I'm visualizing a split portrait of the woodsman and the serpent, whom I will turn into a woman. I'm still brainstorming as to how to keep this from becoming the cover of a trashy fantasy-erotica-romance book.

Instead of doing my usual animal headdress-beanies, I think I'm going to go out on a limb and actually try to morph human and serpent into one hybrid creature. The woman will be, for all purposes, a fully-functioning female, with snake scales showing in some parts (she might even be pulling some skin off to reveal the scales underneath).