12fp(s) - painting 20

This is the most recent piece from my series of Film-inspired Paintings, created in February 2010, a month or so after my exhibition at the Filmhouse last year.


The original film source has a stunning vitality to its aesthetic, with strong colours and bold lighting - it's a perfect example of the 1950s Film Noir style reincarnated in the 21st Century. And it was this wonderful visual style that attracted me to painting the image in the first place.

While working on the painting I knew that using colours alone would look horrible. So after laying down all the colours and letting the paints dry, I went over the painting with black outlines and texture (in a process similar to some of my favourite paintings from recent months) in order to improve the visual depth of the image and make the finished piece come to life.

12fp(s) - painting 19

This is the most recent Film-inspired painting that I have produced, and as such was the final painting to appear at my exhibition last month.
It is based on one of my favourite films, however this particular still wasn't my first choice to paint (for such a stylish and culturally significant film, it seems to have surprisingly few unedited film stills available on the Internet).


The film, starring Warren Beatty & Faye Dunaway, re-tells a notorious American crime story, and was directed by Arthur Penn in what critics consider a ground-breaking style that merged the big-budget world of Hollywood with the joie-de-vivre of Nouvelle Vague [French New Wave] films. As a matter of fact, the first choice director was acclaimed Nouvelle Vague critic/director Francois Truffaut (Jules et Jim, 400 Blows), and when he dropped out in order to direct Fahrenheit 451 (starring Oskar Werner and Julie Christie) the producers approached Jean-Luc Godard (A Bout de Souffle, Bande a Part) - who today is widely considered the most influential of all the Nouvelle Vague directors.
The film is Bonnie & Clyde (1967).

The film is a romanticised version of the couple's real-life story as they rob banks and go on the run with their gang. It has plenty of great action sequences mixed with enough intimate moments between the gang for it to feel like a complete story rather than just a hollow action-heavy blockbuster like we're used to from Hollywood today.
As such there were numerous scenes from this film that I had in mind for making this painting, however I was unable to source any of them as still images on the Internet, and so decided to settle on this still image portraying Bonnie Parker holding up a bank instead.

The actual film was shot in colour, however I decided to paint this a single reddish colour similar to my earlier Bande a Part painting because that style worked well in the past. I'm not so keen on it here though, mainly because this particular pigment [similar but not identical to the one used in the Bande a Part painting] didn't offer the kind of strong tonal variation that I think would have made this painting come to life.
By using that particular colour I had hoped that it would create an appealing vintage aesthetic, however once I started painting I discovered that the colour was more like an off salmon-pink, which I don't find appealing: Had the paint been a bolder pink colour it may have worked better, or (ideally) had it been more of a brown/sepia colour, I think it would have been near-perfect.

12fp(s) - painting 18

This was the final painting that I created during a flurry of creativity at the beginning of December after learning that the exhibition of my Film-inspired Painting Series at the Filmhouse was getting extended for an extra month.


There were a significant number of still images from this film that I was interested in painting for the series, however I eventually settled on this one because I liked the dark ambience and intriguing mood that is gripping the attention of the two protagonists.
The other stills that I had considered for this painting felt too focused on Grace Kelly's character, and as paintings would therefore have looked too much like a traditional fashion plate or a portrait painting rather than a Film still - which would have been out-of-place within the rest of this painting series.

I'm not entirely sure what I think of this finished painting...
I like the overall aesthetic, but particularly the atmosphere and colouring: There's a nice tonal variation, which I think gives the painting a good sense of depth and effectively translates the sense of tension from the film itself.

However I think the painting also looks quite [unintentionally] comical because it seems like an illustration from a cheap pulp fiction novel, which I admire but can't really take seriously. Also, the painting of Grace Kelly's character looks like it came from another source and has just been glued onto this painting: For example her fashionable clothing and brightly-lit figure seem entirely juxtaposed with the rest of the image. You could argue that this juxtaposition was enforced by the film itself, however I'd suggest that the painting style of Grace Kelly's character differs subtly from the rest of the painting, which does nothing but intensify the issue further.

12fp(s) - painting 17

The second of the three paintings I created at the beginning of December was from Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie (1964).
It was actually one of the very first film stills that I had planned to paint for my Film-inspired Painting Series (way back in July/August), however I had put it off for such a long time because I always harboured strong reservations about how well the film still would translate into a painting.


The main reason for that reservation was because I loved the 60s style inherent in the film (particularly in relation to Diane Baker's character), and although I imagined her style adapting well into a portrait painting technically similar to Gil Elvgren's pin-up illustrations, I did not want to adopt that painting style for this series.

By the time December came around (at least four months after I had initially watched the film and planned to paint a still image from it), my admiration for the visual style of the film was no longer at the front of my mind and I finally felt free enough to try interpreting the style of the film into a painting.

I decided to go with quite a minimalist painting style in the hope that this would allow the fashion/style of the characters to stand out as the main focus of the image instead of the painting style/technique: This is similar to a watercolour portrait painting that I did back in 2007 and still really admire.
Just like in 2007, I think the minimalist painting style worked well for highlighting the stylish fashion of the female, however I really dislike what it has done to the portrait of Sean Connery - it just looks bizarre.

Although it's effective for highlighting the characters, I'm not too keen on the background either (although I can't think of what else would have worked better).
In the original film still the background is part of an interior shot but it looked rather ambiguous, so if I tried to literally translate that ambiguous background with paint then it would look even more abstract, which I think would detract from the subjects of the painting. Also, the original background (as seen in the film) was a brownish colour, however I felt that there was already too much orange/brown colours in the faces and that using more of those colours in the background would make the overall painting too flat and unappealing.
I therefore decided to use what I thought would be complimentary - a green colour - for the background.
I'm still in two minds about whether that was the right decision to make because in some ways the green colour is really ghastly while the bizarre shapes and tonal variations of the background don't really tell us anything; yet at the same time I can't help but feel as though the green background is exciting because it makes the audiences eyes jump constantly between the foreground and background in a never-ending duel to maintain your attention.

Despite all this though, I kinda think that for the painting to be most effective I should just cut it in two and show only Diane Baker's character - cos I think that side of the painting looks fine... (?)

12fp(s) - painting 16

When I was asked to extend my painting exhibition at the Filmhouse for an extra month (until the end of 2009), I decided to create some new Film-inspired Paintings for the display.


There were three film stills at that moment that I was particularly keen to paint, and in a flurry of creativity, I kinda ended up working on all three of them simultaneously; however the first of my three new paintings was a still from Woody Allen's Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008).
I have not yet seen the film, but I was aware of this particular still, and really liked its colourful composition of Penelope Cruz' character posing against what looks like a graffitied garage door.

The painting itself looks more like a portrait than a film still (so it doesn't seem to easily fit with the rest of my Film-inspired Painting Series), and in my opinion there are weaknesses regarding the quality of the portrait: For example the image looks rather two-dimensional, yet the texture of the paint is a bit blotchy, which I find to distract from the subject of the painting.
Despite that issue, I still enjoy this painting simply for its softness and the almost pastel-like colour palette. It doesn't try to shout out or draw attention to itself, it just sits peacefully in the background.

12fp(s) - painting 15

After two months, the exhibition of my Film-inspired Painting Series came to a close this evening, which means that I can finally upload the following painting (cos I had forgotten to scan it before putting it on display at the Filmhouse!)


This was a strange little painting that I was inspired to do at the beginning of November thanks to Halloween.
I really liked the original film still: it had a vintage aesthetic to it, and in a kind of Beauty And The Beast moment, the interaction between Frankenstein's monster and the little girl illustrates the tenderness that hides underneath his grotesque appearance.

The painting would probably have looked more appealing if painted in the same Burnt Umber [brown] colour as my Bande a Part painting, however I wanted to do something a bit different from both that painting and my Hamlet Goes Business painting (which used blue), so green seemed like an intriguing choice...

I now think the green and white aesthetic looks too cold to convey the warmth of the relationship between the two characters, however it was an interesting challenge to work on.

12fp(s) - painting 14 [SOLD]

This was the first of many 'new' Film-inspired Paintings that I created as potential replacements for any paintings that sold during my solo exhibition (which ran from November 5th 2009 until January 4th 2010) at the Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh.

I had been fascinated by the cinematography in Jean-Luc Godard's La Mepris [Contempt] for quite some time, and there were several stills featuring Brigitte Bardot that I thought would make interesting paintings (the still below for example).

...However I wasn't keen on using those stills for this painting series because, as with Painting 2 (from Aki Kaurismäki's Shadows In Paradise), I didn't like how those kinds of stills looked more like a portrait than a still image from a film. But after a bit of time researching I eventually found a pleasant Mediterranean-based film still that had an intriguing composition vaguely similar to my North By Northwest painting, and which loosely evoked a mood similar to the paintings of Edward Hopper, who is one of my favourite painters.

This was the first painting I had done in a few weeks, and I wasn't entirely sure what kind of aesthetic I wanted to achieve with it. I was changing my mind about various aspects of the painting as I went along, and I kept rushing things unnecessarily, which is rarely a good idea.
In the end I wasn't too pleased with the quality of the finished painting, however the addition of some dark ink over Bardot's character helped to draw attention away from the blotchy background (which had been really bugging me); and I think the strong aesthetic of the source film still also helped to mitigate any other issues I had.

It may not have been one of my stronger paintings (in my opinion), but apparently you learn from every mistake...

12fp(s) - painting 13 [SOLD]

When I first got the idea for my 12fp(s) Film-inspired Painting Series I aimed to create 12 paintings based upon films I found influential while producing my short animated graduation film [called Pigment of Imagination - click here to watch the trailer] at Edinburgh College of Art last year. However I soon found myself painting stills from films I had not yet seen (for example Gun Crazy and Belle de Jour), or painting stills from films that I didn't enjoy too much (like The Match Factory Girl) just because the still looked like an interesting challenge.

A month after creating my first Film-inspired watercolour painting (from Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout de Souffle) I found myself with the full series of 12 Film-inspired paintings; and a lot of spare time...
Having enjoyed working on this series (that merged my interests in Film and Painting) I decided to create some more Film-inspired paintings, and in mid-October I had created the 13th painting - as seen at the top of this blog post, which is taken from Sergio Leone's Fistful of Dollars.

While working on this piece I was given my first solo painting exhibition at the Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh for the month of November.
The exhibition (of this series) has since been extended until the end of 2009, so if you've not seen it yet there are another 3 weeks remaining - the Filmhouse is open everyday except December 25th.
Click here to read my blog post with more information about the Filmhouse and my exhibition).

The exhibition has been surprisingly popular, so I decided to create more Film-inspired paintings that would replace the old ones as they get sold... To date I've painted new stills from:
- Contempt
- Frankenstein
- Vicky Cristina Barcelona
- Marnie
- Rear Window

Contempt and Frankenstein have been exhibited at the Filmhouse since week 2 in mid-November (replacing Bande a Part and Vivre Sa Vie), but are not featured on my blog yet. If you want to see them you will need to visit my exhibition for a preview.
The three other new paintings will be exhibited at the Filmhouse some time soon (hopefully before Wednesday 16th), when they will replace Fistful of Dollars [at the top of this post], North By Northwest, and another one that is yet-to-be-decided...

Filmhouse exhibition update

Because the exhibition of my Film-inspired Painting Series at the Filmhouse cinema has been extended for an extra month (until the end of the year), I've decided to create some new paintings to display during the remaining few weeks....


I had already created two new paintings before the exhibition opened, which have been on display at the Filmhouse since week 2 in mid-November. Those were:
- Le Mepris [Contempt] (1963). Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard,
- Frankenstein (1931). Directed by: James Whale.

But some of the new Film-inspired paintings I've created this past week include:
- Rear Window (1954). Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock,
- Marnie (1964). Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock,
- and Vicky Cristina Barcelona (2008). Directed by: Woody Allen.


I haven't decided when these new paintings will go on display, but it is likely to be some time next week...

Exhibition continues...

The lovely people at the Filmhouse cinema in Edinburgh have extended the exhibition of my Film-inspired Painting Series until the end of the year!


My exhibition is in the narrow, white-walled corridor located along the left hand side of the cafe/bar area (which is behind the box office, and open from 10am-11:30pm seven days a week).

So if you've not had a chance to see my exhibition over the past 3 weeks, you've now got another 4 weeks to enjoy it: Why not pop-in while you're doing some Christmas shopping in the Scottish capital?


Address:
Filmhouse
88 Lothian Road
Edinburgh
EH3 9BZ

Click here for the Google Map of Edinburgh (pin-pointing the location of the Filmhouse)

Exhibition opens tomorrow

My debut painting exhibition opens at the Filmhouse cinema (Lothian Road, Edinburgh) from 3pm tomorrow. Please go along and have a look...


Until November 29th [UPDATE: Closing date has been extended until the end of 2009! - See this blog post], I will be exhibiting my 12fp(s) Film-inspired Painting Series in the corridor beside the cafe that leads towards cinema screens 2 & 3. For those not familiar with the Filmhouse, the corridor exhibiting my paintings is located on the left hand side of the building, diagonally behind the front box office and running alongside the cafe/bar area.

I'm planning to exhibit the 12 original Film-inspired paintings (which will all be available to buy) and as seen on my blog here, but as they get sold I plan to replace them with brand new Film-inspired paintings that will be premiering at the Filmhouse (they have not even been shown online yet!)...

The exhibition is free to view 7 days a week [Filmhouse opening hours are 10am-11pm]; but Scotland's leading independent cinema has much more to offer including:
- An exhibition of posters by Franciszek Starowieyski (pseudonym Jan Byk) in the cafe/bar area;
- The "food for a fiver" offer is available in the cafe/bar every day 3pm-5pm, but a great selection of fresh and affordable food is also available every day until 10pm.
- The shop beside the box office has a vast selection of DVDs for sale, as well as various postcards and cards.
- "The best, busiest and probably trickiest film quiz in the country" takes place in the cafe/bar area at 9pm on Sunday 13th December. It's free to enter, and you can have a team of up to 8 people!
- And throughout the month of November, various Film Seasons are focusing on the work of [NOTE: the following links will take you directly to the relevant Filmhouse page about each season]: Orson Welles, Jacques Tati, Polish filmmaker Wojciech Has, The Best of Czech Cinema (1999-2009), and the Filmhouse' own French Film Festival 2009.


Address:
Filmhouse
88 Lothian Road
Edinburgh
EH3 9BZ

Click here for the Google Map of Edinburgh (pin-pointing the location of the Filmhouse)

12fp(s) - summary

Now that my 12 Film-inspired paintings are done, here's a blog post to bring them all together:






Painting 4 (below) has been sold:



Painting 6 (below) has been sold:



Painting 8 (below) has been sold:

Painting 9 (below) has been sold:

Painting 10 (below) has been sold:





The films featured in each of my paintings are:

Painting 1) A Bout de Souffle / Breathless. (1960) Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard. France, Les Productions Georges de Beauregard.

Painting 2) Varjoja Paratiisissa / Shadows In Paradise. (1986) Directed by: Aki Kaurismäki. Finland, Villealfa Filmproduction Oy.

Painting 3) Gun Crazy. (1950) Directed by: Joseph H. Lewis. USA, King Brothers Productions.

Painting 4) Vivre Sa Vie. (1962) Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard. France, Les Films de la Pléiade. [SOLD].

Painting 5) Hamlet Liikemaailmassa / Hamlet Goes Business. (1987) Directed by: Aki Kaurismäki. Finland, Villealfa Filmproduction Oy.

Painting 6) North by Northwest (1959) Directed by: Alfred Hitchcock. USA, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM). [SOLD].

Painting 7) Une Femme Est Une Femme / A Woman Is a Woman. (1961) Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard. France, Euro International Film (EIA).

Painting 8) The Shawshank Redemption. (1994) Directed by: Frank Darabont. USA, Castle Rock Entertainment. [SOLD].

Painting 9) Belle de Jour / Beauty of the Day. (1967) Directed by: Luis Buñuel. France/Italy, Robert et Raymond Hakim. [SOLD].

Painting 10) Bande à Part / Band of Outsiders. (1964) Directed by: Jean-Luc Godard. France, Anouchka Films. [SOLD].

Painting 11) Edward Scissorhands. (1990) Directed by: Tim Burton. USA, Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation.

Painting 12) Tulitikkutehtaan Tyttö / The Match Factory Girl. (1990) Directed by: Aki Kaurismäki. Finland, Esselte Video.

12fp(s) - painting 12

Here we are, finally, at Painting 12 of the 12fp(s) Film-inspired painting series.


This 'final' image is considerably different from the rest of the series due to the addition of ink, and although it does look odd in comparison to the rest, I think the ink has improved the overall aesthetic appeal.

I started-off by trying to create this image entirely from watercolours (like the rest of the series), but the painting looked flat and the colouring was garishly bright, which looked really odd given the setting and mood of the original film still.
I had considered giving up on this painting because I just couldn't fix the tones and colouring to a satisfactory standard:
- I tried using several brown washes to weaken the purple and blue hues on the left hand side;
- I tried strengthening the weak hues in order to level everything out so that the garish colours are not as bold;
- I had even considered utilising an abstract painting style like Wassily Kandinsky in the hope that the abstract style would mask the problems. (Minor evidence of this abstraction remains on the girl's jumper in the bottom left corner, where the paint is a lot patchier than the rest of the painting).
But my solution came in the form of a writing pen...

The pen hasn't 'fixed' the painting, but it has certainly detracted from the garishness of the original colouring while adding a darker mood to the overall image that kind of reminds me of gothic etchings and vintage illustrations.
This may not be the best painting in the series, but I think it is an interesting change and could lead to more pictures getting made in this style...

12fp(s) - painting 11

A very everyday/conventional looking scene from an American film director commonly associated with Expressionism, black comedy, and very odd characters...

I chose this particular shot over any of the more typical and Expressionistic shots from the film because I felt that this image had a faint sense of Edward Hopper about it (like several of my other paintings in this series), and I also thought that if my painting depicted a more recognisable scene from the film then its story would distract from my painted image.

12fp(s) - painting 10 [SOLD]

This is a painting of one of my favourite films (released in 1964), directed by one of my favourite directors.
This iconic dance scene (where the three protagonists dance The Madison in a Paris cafe for almost 4 undisturbed minutes of film), is just one of many stunning set-pieces in this classic Nouvelle Vague film - and it later inspired the Jack Rabbit Slim's dance scene in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994).

While watching this film scene, I rarely ever notice the background or cafe setting because the dance is so fun and beguiling - so my attention is always on the three characters. To reflect this I wanted my painting to subtly describe the background while the three characters grab our focus.
Some people may consider this painting unfinished as a result of the unpainted background, but I think this simplified style is very graphic and illustrative, which makes the painting effective for achieving my aims. And anyway, painting shouldn't always be about strongly recreating reality - especially when film and photography to do it much quicker and better.

12fp(s) - painting 9 [SOLD]

Going right back to basics [ie: 12fp(s) - Painting 1] with this painting: French film, 1960s, 2 characters, very similar colour scheme...
And it has, to a considerable extent, worked.

There are a few little things I could complain about, but for once I'm just going to accept the painting as it is and be happy with it!

12fp(s) - painting 8 [SOLD]

I think it's time I change subject matter because these paintings just seem to be getting less and less appealing.

After yesterdays painting when I couldn't stick to a specific painting style to use, I made the decision with this painting to just make it quite loose from the very beginning.


The washy non-specific background works quite well, but because this style offers nothing to focus on, it puts the viewers entire attention onto the foreground characters. Although that is what I wanted to happen, the foreground characters lack detail (or any other point of interest), so the whole image is just a hazy/watery blur with nothing to maintain the viewers attention.

This painting seems to be also lacking depth. Originally the background was very pale, which reflected the source image, but it wasn't working as a painting so I put a darker wash over the background. I was unsure whether it would work, but after a few hours away from working on the painting I can now see that the darker background has improved the image - however I think it could be darker still...

Another thing that I've tried in order to compensate for the lack of depth in this painting is to again (like in Painting 3), digitally blur the background in order to decrease the depth of focus. This has successfully broken up the painting to help improve the depth, but while it is quite intriguing I don't think it is entirely convincing...

12fp(s) - painting 7

I'm not happy with this one:


It was a bad drawing to begin with, and then once I was painting it I couldn't decide what to do with the brushstrokes, which has made the whole image a bit of a mess...
I should either have made the whole thing quite controlled and 'realist' so that the painting looks conventionally decent, or I should have gone with my instincts and let the brushstrokes run wild so that the image is more Impressionistic and interesting; but instead of doing either of those I've just got this monotonous painting that is kinda poor in all elements.

12fp(s) - the series so far...

I'm struggling to find more interesting film stills on the Internet for me to paint, so after doing 6 (out of the 12 planned paintings) here's a photo showing the series so far:

Did you notice that I've removed one painting?

I'm pleasantly surprised with how nicely the paintings go together, but I had to remove my second painting because it looks nothing like a film still (it is much more like a portrait painting), so it seemed completely out of place when placed amongst this series.
Although removing that painting now means that I've only done 5 paintings and need to try finding another 7 film stills to paint, I do have a couple of possible alternatives from previous years if I can't find enough to fill the series...

There's this painting of Scarlett Johansson in Lost In Translation, which I used to illustrate the introductory blog post that outlined my plans for this series:

And there is also this painting from March 2008, which shows Ken Stott portraying Tony Hancock in a British television programme from that time:
(OK, it's not strictly speaking a "film still", but the painting does seem to fit-in with this series).

Neither of these paintings would be ideal for this series (because again they seem more like portraits), but what's the alternative?
I seem to have spent days on Google Images looking for adequate stills, but I keep coming back to the same bunch of films.
I haven't even been able to find a good image from any of the 22 James Bond films!
What films am I forgetting to look for???

12fp(s) - painting 6 [SOLD]

If there is a film in this painting series that people have a good chance of recognising, it is almost certainly going to be this one (mainly because 4 out of the previous 5 films were either Finnish or from French New Wave cinema of the 1950s/60s)...


This is a quick painting from an American film of 1959, directed by the legendary English filmmaker who most influenced the development of my graduation film (Pigment of Imagination) last year.
My dad quickly identified the actor and several memorable scenes from the film, but he struggled to recall the name of the film. Can you do better?

I have used the tubed watercolour paints (like yesterday's painting) for my second time, and although I had to wrestle with the paint in order to get the colours and textures that I originally desired, the finished image is slowly beginning to grow on me.
I can't tell whether I am warming to this painting because I like the aesthetic, or if it's just because I see hints of Edward Hopper in it (much like the first painting, which coincidently was of another 1959 film!) But one thing is for sure: this is one of the most memorable scenes in this great film, and I now have a strong desire to do nothing but watch the full film (once again)!