A Childhood of Shadows and Watchmaking In the coastal town of Kragerø, a young boy named Theodor Kittelsen learned early that life could be as unpredictable as the sea. Following the death of his father, the family faced lean years, and at only eleven years old, the boy was apprenticed to a watchmaker. This period of precision and small, mechanical movements perhaps prepared him for the meticulous detail found in his later drawings. Though he spent his days among gears and springs, his eyes were always wandering toward the edges of the woods and the depths of the fjords. His path changed when…