A close- up is a shot which tightly frames a person or an object often displaying finer details on a large scale.
In Sunset Boulevard Norma Desmond famously uttered the words “Alright, Mr DeMille, I’m ready for my close-up.” The part acted by Gloria Swanson depicts a washed up silent movie actress who craves the attention she once commanded. Not satisfied with the way that film has moved on, she dreams of returning to the silver screen. By enlisting the help of a failing screen writer she draws him in to her fantasy world.
The close- up invites the viewer to really look into the character. It interrupts the flow of the film and demands that the viewer take pause and consider things. I have noticed a difference between my first painting of this nature and the latter two; the first includes some of the background, some of the wider scene however this is left out of focus so as not to detract too much from the face. The other two paintings are closely cropped around the face alone. Perhaps there is a desire to cut out all other distractions and it is the person alone that tells the story. We do not just feel a part of the situation but are expected to feel what the character feels. What all three paintings have in common is that they are all closely cropped at the head. This was prior to my own cropping. Perhaps we no longer want to linger on an external beauty but want to get inside the mind of the character.
My current painting is of Rocket a character from Sucker Punch; a film about a girl institutionalised by her stepfather. As a coping mechanism she dreams up alternate realities for herself and imagines a plan to escape the mental facility. Although the main character of the Film is Babydoll, Rocket plays a key part in the group planning to escape. She is the first one to empathise with Babydoll at first instructing her on how to survive and later in sharing their regrets with one- another. She is the first to get involved with the escape plan and sacrifices her life for the good of the group. This shot focuses on a poignant moment between herself and her sister Sweet Pea. The two sisters disagree on whether to carry on with the escape plan after their plan has been foiled; Rocket says “I’m finishing this. We are all finishing this”.
I am beginning to consider the display of my paintings and how they may need to be viewed from multiple perspectives. I have observed that my faces (I am not sure that they can be called portraits as many are so closely cropped) all look off to one side and none head on at the viewer. I had planned to display the paintings above and below one another, however due to the direction of the subject’s glance this might be emphasised by hanging them in one continuous horizontal line.
There becomes a battle when Portrait painting between what the paint wants and the character of the person. Sometimes the character can own the painting and sometimes the composition can overcompensate so that the character is lost in the act of painting. It is this balance that makes painting so enjoyable. How much should the artist render the image? Should there be other objects around? How will this aid or detract from the face? These are the questions I have been asking myself.
Most of my paintings follow a similar process. I select an image and then crop it before altering colour or brightness. I began my painting of Kal-El from the film Man of Steel by sectioning my canvas on the vertical and horizontal. The face was then drawn roughly in pencil. Once I started painting there was no order to which I applied the paint. With my next painting I used a more structured approach, starting with the eyes and working outwards. This is important because the eyes are the focus.
I have cropped the images to just around the face. It is the facial features (mouth and eyes) that tell a story and show emotion. My paint is sometimes translucent so that the grid is still visible underneath, an added reminder that what we are looking at is not real emotion. A further barrier between us and them is the block colour that is not quite realistic. At a distance the painting looks like real emotion but when close to, the flatness of the paint can be seen. Like the pictures they represent these characters are not real but a way in which we can experience emotion and empathy in a safe situation and from a distance.
