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Description
I saw the Phantom of the Opera for the first time when I was seven years old.
My grandmother told me about the story of a man who lived in a flooded basement, like a labyrinth, and who fell in love with a singer, and eventually brought her into his world to be with him. The concept unnerved me, but I was very curious about this creature, his love for the surface world and what the singer could bring to him that he wanted so badly. I remember my first experience with his world, and his beautiful soprano, and the reflection of her dress on the polished black stage of Broadway, and thought about how it made his lair appear even more realistic, as though there was a thin layer of water across the surface. My mother had beautiful paintings, which usually overshadowed the quality of the rest of the home in more ways than one, floaty, soft-- romantic paintings, full of color and movement.

This was an exercise in soft paint techniques, and trying to capture the essence of what I felt as a child, the cold, spooky apprehension of this timeless story; but also the soft glow and warmth of childhood reminiscence, meditating on lovely paintings, and mature romance. His color palette is cold, drawn from the lair itself, as if he were the personification of it (see, his mask against the black and the angular corners of the staircase); and she, the captured warmth of the summertime of youth and the softness of her dress against the cold stone.

Description
I saw the Phantom of the Opera for the first time when I was seven years old.
My grandmother told me about the story of a man who lived in a flooded basement, like a labyrinth, and who fell in love with a singer, and eventually brought her into his world to be with him. The concept unnerved me, but I was very curious about this creature, his love for the surface world and what the singer could bring to him that he wanted so badly. I remember my first experience with his world, and his beautiful soprano, and the reflection of her dress on the polished black stage of Broadway, and thought about how it made his lair appear even more realistic, as though there was a thin layer of water across the surface. My mother had beautiful paintings, which usually overshadowed the quality of the rest of the home in more ways than one, floaty, soft-- romantic paintings, full of color and movement.

This was an exercise in soft paint techniques, and trying to capture the essence of what I felt as a child, the cold, spooky apprehension of this timeless story; but also the soft glow and warmth of childhood reminiscence, meditating on lovely paintings, and mature romance. His color palette is cold, drawn from the lair itself, as if he were the personification of it (see, his mask against the black and the angular corners of the staircase); and she, the captured warmth of the summertime of youth and the softness of her dress against the cold stone.