12fp(s) - New series of paintings

For the past week or so I've been preparing for my first painting series called "12fp(s)". This is just a fun/personal exercise influenced by my interest in Film, but I am aiming for it to lead smoothly into a second series, which will be created from a stimulating hybrid of my practices in Animation, Concept Art, and Painting.

The aim of this first series is to portray a still image from various films (hopefully 12 different films at the end of the series), using whatever artistic interpretation feels right at the time of production in order to create something new.
I don't necessarily intend to re-create the mood evoked from watching the original film, or to develop each painting within a specific direction, I just want to see what happens when I have free reign over source material and learn from the experiences.

If the reader has any suggestions for film stills that I should paint I'd be happy to hear/see them. Likewise, comments and feedback are always welcome.

Cheers.

Influences part 19: Berthe Morisot

My recent finger paintings (previous post) have been inspired by the Impressionist movement of the late 19th century, which challenged pre-existing ideals, "emphasized colour to express form and create mood" (Robinson, M. quoted in Pickeral, T. 2007), and celebrated modernity. Key figures from the Impressionist movement include: Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, and Paul Cezanne, but the Impressionist that most influences my finger paintings just now is Berthe Morisot.

Morisot's work had its first of several appearances at the prestigious Salon de Paris in 1864 when she was 23 years old. In 1868 she formed a close friendship with Edouard Manet (another artist associated with the Impressionists), and they influenced each others development equally. Their relationship remained close when Morisot married Manet's brother in 1874 - the same year that the Impressionists had their first exhibition (which Morisot was part of).
Her artworks tend to focus on daily experiences of domestic life because her gender & class were restricted from urban settings and nude figures due to the culture. As a result of this much of Morisot's work portrays the comfort of women's domestic life, much like fellow female Impressionist, Mary Cassatt.

What I admire about Morisot's work is the careful use of colours, combined with the soft brushstrokes, which gives her paintings a subtle vibrancy that enriches the whole image without distracting from the calm, feminine subject matter.
For the past few weeks I have been collecting a series of Morisot paintings from the Internet and examining her style as the primary influence for my finger paintings.
My painting style so far is a lot bolder and nowhere near as subtle/beautiful as those of Morisot, so it may be regarded as ridiculous to link her with my paintings; but then again, it never was my intention to closely copy her style - I simply use her work as an influence so that I avoid using a tighter/controlled painting style or end up with a carefully painted image that tries to imitate reality.
My reason for this is that after studying animation at Edinburgh College of Art for the last 4 years and researching/writing several essays that dismiss 'photo-realistic' art styles, I'm now reluctant to admire any style of art that tries to imitate a photo (or real life) because I feel that this style of art rarely lives up to the photo/real object that it is trying to imitate, so therefore more expressive/looser styles of art can offer a greater amount of visual interest for its audience.


Bibliography:
- Robinson, M. quoted in Pickeral, T. Impressionism. Flame Tree Publishing, London, 2007. Pg 11.
- Olga's Gallery. Berthe Morisot (1841-1895). Available at <http://www.abcgallery.com/M/morisot/morisot.html>. [Last accessed: 04 August 2009].
- Webmuseum, Paris. Berthe Morisot. Available at <http://www.ibiblio.org/wm/paint/auth/morisot/>. [Last accessed: 04 August 2009].
- Wikipedia. Berthe Morisot. Available at <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berthe_Morisot>. [Last accessed: 04 August 2009].

Professional Finger painting!

I'm including some more painting commissions that I've done recently, but unusually for me, they were made using my fingertips instead of paintbrushes.
This might seem like a silly method of painting (kinda like a 3 year old!) but it helps me to achieve a stronger Impressionist style (which I greatly admire just now), and working with my fingertips also feels much more expressive and engaging than my paintbrushes.

It is a painting technique that I first developed while doing my Paint on Glass animation experiments in 2008, which were inspired by the brilliant Paint on Glass animator Aleksandr Petrov [the video below].


Now that the little history lesson is out the way, below is my other recent finger painting.
(Inspecting this image on the computer right now, I can see several things that I don't like about it: as well as the obvious lack of depth, the colours and paint strokes are looking really bold on screen, which I think is distracting from the overall image... If anyone has any opinions then I'd love to hear them).

Although neither of these 2 paintings are particularly great, I think the style has enough potential to develop into something much more exciting as I develop my technique.
Using my fingertips is certainly a more engaging and stimulating work process than that offered by brushes, so this excitement will certainly help to maintain my enthusiasm for improving and developing the style further.

Press feature & other news

From 10th-12th July 2009 Scotland's biggest music festival, T In The Park, took place in my hometown. For this event Mercedes-Benz UK supplied the local police force, Tayside Police, with a little Smart Fortwo police car to test around the festival site.
Official photographs of the highly popular little police car were taken prior to the big weekend, and I was asked to digitally enhance a selection of those photos for a nationwide press release by Mercedes-Benz UK.

The heading photograph (above) is the one used for the Mercedes press release, which has been featured in The Herald newspaper and is now spreading across the Internet. I had spent all of the Sunday evening during the music festival working at home on 10 of the official photos while The Killers headline set live on BBC Scotland blasted out from our surround sound system, yet this is the only photo that has been officially released.

Since T In The Park almost 2 weeks ago, the little Smart police car has now begun 'touring' around Scotland on official police duties with 4 of Scotland's forces, so it could be in a town near you one of these days (if you're in central Scotland)!

Today I was responsible for escorting the police Smart demonstrator across the central belt from Lothian & Borders Police HQ to Strathclyde Police HQ. Asides from 'unintentionally' breaking into the Lothian & Borders HQ, I also got to watch everyones pleasantly surprised reactions to the Smart car as we spent an hour scooting between destinations.
During an unplanned stop-off at the Mercedes-Benz Glasgow showroom, all their customers and employees (including the Mercedes mechanics working on much more sporty/luxurious/expensive models like the SL) hastily broke away from their engagements to see the quirky police car up close... (I don't think I've ever seen so many camera phones at one time!)

Saying as the environmentally-friendly Smart Fortwo police vehicle has been photographed so much, and is now making it's way around several towns in Scotland (therefore likely to cause its picture to spread across mobile phones and social networking sites like a cyber swine flu), I've decided to release some of the other T In The Park photos that I digitally enhanced for Mercedes.







On the way home I got to see Ibrox stadium (the home of Rangers Football Club) for my first time ever. (NOTE: I'm not a Rangers supporter, but I've always wanted to see their historic stadium).
Many of my close childhood friends passionately support Rangers, and one family whom I have been friends with for many years have always had a large picture of the Ibrox main entrance hanging in their home. That image of the stadium with its grand Sandstone masonry and large blue iron gates has always actively held a place in my mind, so I'm happy that I finally got to drive along the road outside the main entrance.
I'm perhaps slightly disappointed that I never got a better view of the stadium, and that it looked a lot smaller in person than the pictures in my mind led me to believe for all those years, but the historic architecture of Ibrox has certainly got a strong characteristic that I really admire and strongly regret about not being in most other football stadiums today...
(I'll save an analysis about the architecture of football stadiums for another day).