While painting the gold, I enjoy it's beauty and the technique I use. I experiment with different colors, in the gold or silver  and in the shadows, because the standards are never set. This is the technical part on which I focus, compartmentalized is the connotation of sadness and melancholy.  It is an intuitive process rather than something planned or thought out, and it changes as the painting progresses. The figures surely feel protected,  but in a certain way are exposed at the same time because you can't help but wondering what lies underneath, which is the relationship between surface and depth.