I wish I knew his name

   This painting was inspired by a photograph taken my my cousin on a recent trip to Morocco.  This young man drove their parity for an overnight stay in the desert.  Unfortunately, communication was limited and his name, they did not get. 

   From my perspective, he was a really interesting person to pain, especially in gouache.  I used some different colours than my normal palette like perylene maroon, red ochre, flame red -  a really earth palette - very effective together and seemed to suit his personality.  And although he was challenging, I just kept layering and lifting until I got the results ì wanted.

   Drawing or painting a person is such a weirdly intimate venture - because you have to look in detail at the shapes of everything (eyes, nose, nostrils, mouth) and after a while even though in this case I'm just using a photograph as a reference, you feel like you know them - even a little bit - which is I why the entire time I was creating this painting, I wished I knew his name.