Once more: Don Quixote walked into the studio…
We’re friends now. lol
discovering Don Quixote
When Tom Ranahan first approached us about the exhibition Tilting at Windmills, he mentioned the Gustave Doré illustrations. Those incredible engravings that so many people associate with Don Quixote.
So naturally that’s where I started.
I flicked through the images before really getting stuck into the story itself. The drama in those engravings is unbelievable. Horses flying everywhere. Quixote being launched off his horse while attacking windmills. The whole thing is theatrical as hell.
There’s a real sense of heroism in them.
But I also knew I had to be careful. If you look at Doré too closely, you end up copying Doré. And that wasn’t the point.
So I stepped back from it.
I wanted the feeling of the story, not a historical illustration of it.
the obvious version
At the beginning I did what everyone probably does.
I sketched the obvious Don Quixote.
The gaunt face.
The thin old man.
The haunted eyes.
Exactly the sort of thing people expect.
And I knew straight away it wasn’t enough.
The first ideas are often the safe ones. The cliché ones. They get you moving but they’re rarely the destination.
And I rarely give people what they expect anyway. That’s never really been my thing.
So I knew I had to push past that version.
Not what he looks like.
What it feels like to be him.
bringing him into my world
At one point I started imagining Don Quixote today.
Not in 17th century Spain.
Here.
Now.
In Birmingham.
I work in Digbeth and I can literally see the city centre from my studio window. The Rotunda. Dale End. Scooters dumped on every corner.
So I started picturing him flying down Dale End on a bloody scooter, charging off to fight something invisible.
It sounds ridiculous, but it opened something up in my head.
Because suddenly he wasn’t trapped in history anymore.
He was here.
In my world.
And in my world people have green hair and purple hair and whatever else I fancy painting that day. So of course Don was going to end up looking like he belonged there too.
Me and Don in the studio - currently drying ready to be photographed…
removing the horse
Then one evening the idea landed.
In every image you ever see of Don Quixote, he’s on his horse. Charging at windmills. Falling off. Getting back on.
And I suddenly thought…
What if the horse just wasn’t there?
He believes the windmills are monsters.
So why should the horse exist either?
Imagine him mid gallop.
Holding the reins.
Charging forward.
But the horse isn’t there.
That was the moment the painting really came alive for me.
Because the viewer suddenly has to confront the same question.
Where’s the horse?
And the answer is simple.
It’s there.
In his head.
once more
Around the same time the words “once more” kept looping in my head.
Once more unto the breach.
Once more.
Because that’s exactly what Don Quixote does. He gets knocked down and gets back up again.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Once more.
At some point I realised those words needed to be physically in the painting.
So I wrote them across his knuckles.
I didn’t even paint them properly in the end. I wrote them in charcoal and painted around them. They’re literally the raw background showing through.
Which feels right, because they’re the backbone of the whole thing.
And somewhere along the way that mantra stopped being his and started being mine as well.
painting the storm
Once the painting started properly it became a battle.
Painting is never a walk in the park. Anyone who tells you it is probably isn’t telling the truth.
One minute you love it.
Next minute you hate it.
You attack it.
Then you pull back.
Then you attack it again.
That’s exactly what happened here.
I started pushing these sickly greens into the face. Really leaning into the psychological tension of it. Letting the brushstrokes get abrasive.
Then I started attacking the background.
Throwing paint.
Letting it drip.
Letting it degrade.
And suddenly I realised what was happening.
The background wasn’t just background.
It was the windmills.
Or rather the storm inside his head.
I kept thinking about The Wizard of Oz, when Dorothy’s house is spinning in the tornado and everything is flying past the window.
That’s where Don is.
Right in the middle of the whirlwind.
Dorothy in the house…
becoming Don Quixote
At some point it hit me that the way I was painting mirrored the story itself.
I was attacking the canvas the same way he attacks the windmills.
Brushstroke after brushstroke.
Once more.
Once more.
Once more.
And when you paint a portrait long enough, something strange happens.
You start to know the person.
Even if they never existed.
Don Quixote walked into my studio in Digbeth in 2026 and we ended up having a conversation.
Somewhere along the line he became a bit of me.
And I probably became a bit of him.
Attack…
humanity
When I look at the painting now, after everything that went into it, the strongest feeling isn’t madness.
It’s something much simpler.
Humanity.
Because beneath all the chaos and imagination and delusion, what I see is just a human being trying their hardest.
Trying to believe in something.
Trying to keep going.
Even when the world tells them they’re wrong.
Don’s part of the family now
The funny thing is, when I look at the painting now, I realise something else.
He belongs with the Wonder Series.
Those paintings came out of a really difficult time in my life after losing my mum. They were about trying to hold onto wonder and imagination when life had become incredibly painful.
Resilience.
Hope.
Don Quixote fits right into that world.
Because that’s exactly what he represents.
So now he’s joined them.
Don’s part of the family now.
He’s up there with the rest of them, staring out at the world in his own slightly unhinged way.
And maybe that’s the most honest portrait of Don Quixote there could ever be.
A man riding a horse that isn’t there.
Getting knocked down.
Getting back up.
And charging forward once more.
Once More
Emma Woolley
Oil and charcoal on linen
122 × 90 cm
2026
Created for Tilting at Windmills
Curated by Tom Ranahan
The Courtyard Gallery, The Core, Solihull
8–25 April 2026
Tilting at Windmills
Private View: Thursday 9 April, 5–8pm
Exhibition: 8–25 April 2026
The Courtyard Gallery, The Core, Solihull
More details:
https://www.tiltingatwindmills.co.uk/
Follow the exhibition:
@tilt.ingatwindmills
@emma_woolley_artist