Project room
Parsifal
Work in progress
A glimpse into a work while it is still taking shape.
Hello dear visitor! And welcome to the project room, where you get an exclusive glimpse into my ongoing work.
My ongoing and current project is: Parsifal.
Why Parsifal?
I have heard the story many times growing up, and every time I have been fascinated by this powerful story, which touches many aspects in myself.
Even though it is so old, it is weighted with timeless questions and themes that make it relevant even today. From that a need and an impulse was born, to try with my own creative powers to give the story colour and form!
This is the story I am now illustrating, from my own experiences and the inner images I have got from listening to it and reading it!
What am I exploring?
What I am trying to explore is my relationship with the legend, how it lives and works within me. And how it comes to expression through the art.
The story in brief
The boy Parsifal grew up with his mother Herzeloyde (widow of the knight Gahmuret, Parsifal's father, and queen over her land). She raised him in the seclusion of the forest and kept his family history from him. She did this because she was trying to keep her son from becoming a knight and meeting the same death as his father.
But as the years went by Parsifal grew more and more curious about life outside the forests, and one fine day he met knights in the woods.
It became a turning point in his life, as he decided to become a knight himself. His mother could do nothing but let him go, and after he had left she fell lifeless to the ground in grief.
His journey upon a rickety horse his mother had given him (she also gave him a fool's costume to lessen his chances of being taken seriously) was long and hard. He experienced life's complex questions, hate, love, loss and difficult trials.
Fate led him to a mysterious castle where he met the wounded and gravely suffering Grail King Anfortas. He was also shown the Grail bowl, but was not yet ready to take it in, and stayed silent throughout his visit. That silence of his came to have fateful consequences…
He left the castle in despair and confusion.
Parsifal became a knight, but as the journey went on the hunt for glory as a knight turned into the dream of the Grail: the search for truth and for meaning.
The journey continued and he was forced to confront his own mistakes, met life's mystery and questions, came to know new people along the way, and it led at last back to the Grail castle.
This time he was changed. Humble, experienced and responsible.
When Parsifal met the Grail King again he asked the question, and the king was healed and freed from the pain thanks to Parsifal's compassion and insight.
The legend of Parsifal ends with him taking over the title of King of the Grail and its guardian.
A little about the Grail
In the legend of Parsifal the Grail is a holy and mysterious object in the form of a bowl. It is often described as the vessel into which Christ's blood ran at the crucifixion. It also appeared at the last supper with Christ and his disciples.
In the legend of Parsifal the Grail becomes a symbol for something deeper — the divine and the search for meaning. A kind of present-day Grail that exists in all of us. No longer as a physical object but more as a mystery that keeps calling throughout life.
The work right now
Right now I have completed three paintings! Though I am not making them in chronological order — why, I do not know; it just turned out that way.
Work 1
Completed
Here is some information about the painting that came first in the project:
When Parsifal lost his direction after his first visit to the Grail.
The first image shows a lost Parsifal who is in a state of dread, sorrow, confusion and self-contempt after he was thrown out of the Grail Castle.
That scene came much later in the story, but something in me made it the first one out.
Process
- Step 1. Sketch. I always make the sketches with ink pens in different sizes.
- Step 2. Since I had an MDF panel as the painting surface for this image, it first needed priming with 3–4 layers of gesso (white acrylic pigment that gives a smooth surface and stops the ground from soaking up the paint). With this particular image I missed the gesso completely, because in my eagerness to get going I forgot about it. So to all of you: do not be too impatient. The ground matters! But to give it some protection anyway, I brushed gesso on the sides and the back afterwards.
- Step 3. Then I sketch on the painting itself as well, with a thin brush and brown paint. To get the proportions right.
- Step 4. Now I brush on the colours. Simply paint. This can take anything from months to about a year. I build the motifs up in layers. That is the magic of it, layer upon layer…
- Step 5. Last of all I brush on a thin layer of linseed oil, to make the otherwise matt colours deep and strong — and on top of that I get a glossy surface!
- Step 6. Drying. Without linseed oil it can take less than a week, but for this painting, which has layers of linseed oil, it took about a month.
Work 2
Completed
Parsifal and the Way Back
It depicts when Parsifal finds his way back to the Grail castle again, after having been turned away the first time.
Process
- Step 1. As almost always, I began with the sketch (ink pens on paper).
- Step 2. For this picture I painted on canvas, which did not require a preparation with gesso. Treated it only with one layer of ordinary white acrylic.
- Step 3. Put a sketch on the painting and put the base colours on. Just to get the proportions right!
- Step 4. As I said, I paint a lot with layers as a technique. For example, I have painted the mountain many times over to get the structure and the depth in the colours. For example, not only using the colours that come out of the tube but mixing them so that they become alive!
- Step 5. Time to dry! For this picture it took barely a week. Used only a little linseed oil blended into the colours for the last layer.
Work 3
Completed
Here is some information about my third painting in the Parsifal series.
Chronologically speaking, this painting is the first!
It depicts the emergence of the Grail through events in the spiritual world, and the Parsifal vision glimpsed in the heavens.
After about 5 months I can finally call the painting finished (in my eyes).
Here is a step-by-step description of how it was made:
Process
- Step 1. Sketch with ink pens in different nib thicknesses (001-08), drawn on paper.
- Step 2. Then I began priming the MDF panel with 5 layers of gesso on the front, the sides and the back, to minimise the risk of the surface soaking up the paint/moisture and so being ruined over time. I also go over it with fine sandpaper to get the surface even and smooth.
- Step 3. On this picture I used acrylic to cover the surface with the base colours, as a first step towards getting a small idea of how everything will turn out… It happens in a short time, as I put the “base patches” in place with a broad brush and quick strokes.
- Step 4. Then comes what is, in my eyes, the most fun part of the work. The oil! The magic of it all is layer upon layer. I began with extremely thin layers that I rubbed out with ordinary kitchen paper. That way the layers became extremely thin, which made possible almost a kind of layer painting in the lighter parts.
- Step 5. When I had done a few thin layers I moved on to thicker and firmer layers. Let them dry, and went at it again, let them dry and went at it again. Again and again and again. That patience and the layers of paint are the magic!
- Step 6. When I have fiddled and fiddled and gone over it again and again with new shades of colour, and I finally feel it is starting to be enough, then it is time to leave it and let the painting take care of itself. In other words, dry! Since I did not use much linseed oil as a solvent this time, it took about two weeks for it to dry completely.
Next
To be continued!