This is the beginning of my latest painting of the character Riddick from the film Pitch Black. This is almost monochrome in it’s appearance which I believe adds to the intensity of mood. I have begun to see that colour plays a big part in my work. I have added colour where there was none in the original picture and made sure to use complimentary colours. I began my painting of hit girl with an orange background but came to realize a bright green would really make her purple hair pop! Likewise in my painting of Rocket her yellow hair is offset by the deep purple opposite.
In my dissertation I looked at the relationship between subject and artist. Elizabeth Peyton identified with celebrity and friends equally. The paintings I am making are of characters that may be fictional but from films that I have watched over and over until we know and recognize that character well. It was interesting to see that a lot of people recognized I had painted Will Smith although they did not necessarily know the film. I have noticed my brush strokes have become loser especially in my painting of Will Smith. It gave more movement to the image and stressed the out-of-focus appearance. I have yet to decide on a Title for each of my paintings and so this is something I will be thinking about and commenting further in later posts.
Usually I go straight into the painting without a prior sketch. I choose the images fairly instinctively and adjust issues throughout the painting. The painting of Riddick has brought me back again to the image of the face on it’s own. My next piece I will take images perhaps from different films to create my own. By collating found images, I will look at both faces and objects seeing what creates or provokes more feeling in the viewer.
