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.

Influences part 24: Gil Elvgren

Gil Elvgren (1914 - 1980) was an American painter and illustrator, best known for some of the 500 pin-up paintings that he produced during a 40 year career; however he also produced adverts for a range of clients including Coca-Cola (for 25 years) and the Good Housekeeping magazine.
In his excellent book Gil Elvgren: The Complete Collection (2008), co-author Charles G. Martignette describes Elvgren as "the Norman Rockwell of the pin-up genre of American Illustration" before going on to say that he also had the high skills of a classical artist. Indeed I would go so far as to suggest that Elvgren's work demonstrates [although often restrained in his commercial work] a superb understanding of form, composition, lighting, and colour that is comparable with Great Masters such as Rembrandt and Vermeer.

Even if you don't already know him by name, you may be familiar with Elvgren's visual style. For example, the style of his pin-up paintings influenced the look of The Saturday's 'Just Can't Get Enough' music video for Comic Relief 2009.


Gil Elvgren is often considered the greatest pin-up artist of all time, and has influenced a great number of artists.
I can't recall how I became familiar with his work, but I suspect it was either name-checked from research conducted during my final year at Edinburgh College of Art, or else he was probably mentioned by a tattoo artist on Miami Ink (as pin-up girls have often been a source of inspiration for many traditional tattoos).
Regardless of this, Elvgren's first notable influence on my own work came soon after I graduated (July 2009), and is most obvious in my portrait painting of actress Ava Gardner as seen here.
Although in my previous blog post I mentioned that I considered the style of Gil Elvgren's pin-up paintings as a relevant painting technique for interpreting the cool 60s style of Alfred Hitchcock's Marnie into a painting of my own.


RELATED GIL ELVGREN LINKS:
- www.gilelvgren.com
- www.ElvgrenPinUp.com An extensive fan site.
- Gil Elvgren at The Pin-Up Files.
- Pin-Up Page: A big collection of Elvgren pin-up paintings.
- Interview with the director of The Saturday's Just Can't Get Enough music video - created in the style of Gil Elvgren's pin-up paintings.


CAUTION: Some of Gil Elvgren's pin-up paintings below display vintage Pretty Girls with underwear and/or mild nudity, which may not be suitable for viewing in public places (ie: at work, school, library, etc).
If using a public computer, please consider those around you and observe any codes-of-conduct before proceeding to the paintings below. (I don't think the images are distasteful or bad, but who knows - some people may take offense to them)...

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... (?)