The figure’s yellow hands are meant to reference a Navajo story, in which Coyote steals Water Baby, the child of Water Monster. The attribute that sets this baby apart are its yellow hands, which reach out from the bundle in which it is hidden. This is a concept that I came up with in senior year of high school, so I used a reference image of my own face at the time to get closer to the emotion and physical state that inspired this composition. I chose to have the hands cover the eyes in order to further emphasize the separateness of the figure from humanity, being the child of a monster, and fundamentally inhuman. On page 1132, blocking or removing the eyes is noted as creating emotional tension. The white background is further indication of the alienation of the figure, with the faint purple shadow of hair even further blurring the lines between face and yawing empty background.
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