Saturday 8 August 2009

12fp(s) - painting 2

I watched this film (by one of my favourite directors) for the first time last week, and noticed quite a few shots that would be suitable for this series. The image that I eventually chose [below] was perhaps not the best choice that I could have made, but I haven't lost anything by doing it, so I can't really complain.


This finished painting doesn't have the visual impact that I originally wanted to achieve (perhaps the watercolours look too calm, and the overall image is too patchy as well), so I am tempted to do a second painting of this film (with acrylics) to compensate or replace this one. I don't really want to have two paintings from one film in this series, but on the other hand this image doesn't look like a film still so it may need excluded once more of the series is complete...

Why then did I pick this still over all the others?
I was intrigued by this shot because it feels like the two characters are staring right into the audience and thoroughly scrutinizing us. I had imagined the finished image looking really effective painted on a large scale and hanging in an enclosed space from which the viewer cannot escape their stare. I've never done anything like that before, so it would be interesting to see if I could pull it off. Another reason for not going with one of the other film stills is that they were all much darker than this one and better suited to acrylic paints, however I'm really enjoying the watercolours, and at the present time I cannot help but do Impressionistic finger painting whenever I go near acrylics - which would not fit with my plans for those other stills.
I've said that I originally imagined this being really effective on a large scale, however I ended up painting it on A4 cropped to a widescreen format. As a result of this the finished painting has lost a lot of the potential impact that a larger version would have had, yet the painted characters do maintain a sense of that uncomfortable scrutiny that attracted me to the film still in the first place.

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