The finished work
It was important to capture a certain expression that I felt very
strongly throughout the book. Shackleton's image had to invoke:
the intense physical, mental and spiritual pressure he was under,
the hopes and fears of the unknown, the weight of responsibility.
Added to this was a certainty, a steel core; a man who'd planned
and trained for this.
A giant of a man (regardless of his actual height), something
quite foreign in these times. He has a lot in common with
Winston Churchill.
Due to the thickness of medium and paint on the canvas the play
of light on the image gives very different results. Below is the
artwork with strong overhead electric light, on the left daylight
coming from the right.