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!

Influences part 20: Zina Saunders

The latest post over on the Lines & Colours blog highlights the new issue of Illo magazine and features a sample of work by four illustrators; but Zina Saunders was the featured artist that immediately caught my attention.


I would describe Saunders' style as having a loosely realist drawing style mixed with a controlled Expressionist colouring scheme. Although this is a contrast to my usual art preferences, Saunders makes it work to great effect, which really captivated me and inspired me to do some further research on it beyond the Lines and Colours blog post.
It states on Saunders website that she has been a writer/illustrator for over 15 years, and as well as general illustrations she also does political satire, woodcut-inspired works, and 'reportage illustration' that fuses her illustrations with her interviews and other writings.

Saying as I only just found Saunders work earlier today I don't know whether I'd call her an influence right now [note that this blog post is called Influences...], but I certainly have a great admiration for the work featured on her website, and I can also sense a vague similarity between some of her works and my current painting series (mainly the realism and my keen interest in colour) - so why not include her here?

I like the realism used on the key areas in each of her works (such as the faces), and although I'm not so keen on the loose/vibrant line work used in other parts of her works (like bits of the background - see image below), for me it is the Expressionist colouring that dominates the image and grabs attention (because I love colour!)


I can't tell yet whether the work of Zina Saunders will have any notable influence on my work in the future, but hopefully it will help me to loosen my strong grasp on realism - as is noticeable in my current painting series 12fp(s).

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...