This was a turning point in the series! I’d been saving this larger canvas for something with some real drama, and I was also eager to paint something involving my beloved butlers Hobbeson and Chives. Filling this scene gave me plenty of time to think about the characters, and the action, and the ways I might potentially connect the other paintings in the library show.

Perhaps the most significant development was my perspective on story. My approach to Hobbeson and Chives has frequently involved reducing their appearances to isolated moments: the climax of an event, the heat of battle, or a shocking discovery. They were clearly involved in stories, but the actual stories were mostly implied.

Working on a painting of Hobbeson and Chives reminded me of how much fun it is to create pieces of a story, but leave the details and connections up to the audience’s imagination. This particular canvas is full of that stuff! That got me thinking of how I could bring those story elements into other canvases, and part of that process would be to create explicit connections between them.

When you look at this painting, I hope that you immediately start to wonder what the story is: who are the creatures, what are they after, who is the toucan? There’s a lot to take in. But if I also created obvious visual connections between different canvases, that would add a whole new dimension of story ideas. And it started here, with the largest canvas (so far) and the longest title (so far): Hobbeson & Chives - Crimefighting Butlers in Love and Battle, in ‘Tendril is the Night!’