When I look over my portfolio, sometimes I try to see what’s missing. It’s difficult to look for ways to add some variety, while at the same time challenging myself artistically. For a while I’ve noticed that I never really paint any types of animals. So when I was given the opportunity to paint something I haven’t tackled previously, in this case a great white shark, I went for it.

I have a tendency in my paintings to feature one individual prominently, so it was refreshing this time that the “main character” in the painting would be a shark. Water is also something that I enjoy painting, playing with the shifts in color and its reflective qualities.

Over the last few months I’ve been approaching the process of painting differently as well. In the past I would simply jump in with the characters until they were fully rendered and then proceed to paint the surrounding background.

I would find many times that color relationships would be drastically different, some colors would be too intense while others may be too saturated. The result would feel muddled and haphazard. What I’ve been doing recently is beginning with the most distant objects in the background, in this case the sky and sea, and gradually working my may to the foreground. It’s never a perfect process, but I think the initial layers of paint form a more cohesive image.
Since college I’ve been using Golden Acrylic paints, and while I’ve used all sorts of other brands and find most of them to work just fine, I simply prefer Golden’s line of acrylics. Recently they released a line of Historical Acrylic Hues, which are supposedly recreations of colors available long ago. I first tried these out a few months ago but struggled with the paint flow and low viscosity. At first I didn’t think I’d be able to use them, however I really enjoyed the range of colors I could achieve with them, particularly with skin tones. I decided to stick it out and now, with the exception of Titanium White, Jaws is painted entirely with these historic hues.

Often I butt heads with a painting, so it was nice to work on something that went as smoothly as this. The final painting is acrylic on canvas, 18×24 inches.

Commissions can be an interesting process. Some people have more input in what conceptually goes into a painting, making it more collaborative, while others allow me more freedom to come up with something on my own. Back in October I was asked to do a painting based on Fight Club. The finished piece is above, after the jump is a look at my creative process, and how I developed this piece from concept to completion.

After starting with some small thumbnail sketches to get some ideas on paper, I begin with head studies, what can sometimes be an arduous task of capturing the subject’s likenesses.

Once I’m satisfied with those I proceed with the background drawing done on paper that is of exact size the final painting will be. It’s at this point where I usually see what I’m in for. More often than not this is the stage where the most revisions are required. Walls need to be demolished and moved farther back, a table that once seemed feasible no longer fits into the composition, my eraser becoming a wrecking ball. Like a carpenter building the walls of a house and not finding them to his liking tearing them down to start over.

With the background drawing finished I can see how the figures will fit in the composition. Despite what any art class may say, I always wanted to throw Tyler Durden right dead center staring down the viewer, fitting with his nature. Marla and the Narrator positioned on either side, Tyler becomes a visual device that separates them in the same way the house acted as a barrier in my Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind painting. The main three in place, I essentially dropped in the members of Project Mayhem where I felt they were the most interesting, space allowing.

The finished sketch is then e-mailed to the client for approval, with no revisions required the sketch is transferred onto canvas using carbon paper. Painting the entire surface is my primary goal. Establishing the lights and darks, I drew influence from Caravaggio’s use of dramatically lighting figures in order to draw attention to them, seen in both Durden and the Narrator. Another inspiration for the painting came from Gerrit Van Honthorst’s Supper Party, itself depicting a casual gathering of characters lit naturally at night. Color relationships also play an integral part. The warm reds in the foreground, such as Marla’s dress, Durden’s jacket and the bars of soap offered a nice contrast to the predominantly cool greens of the background.

The entire surface now painted, I can focus on tightening up the painting. This is the most time consuming part of the painting, requiring layers of paint to be applied before a satisfactory result can be achieved. Details such as the objects adorning the fireplace mantle or the maps the Narrator are holding are painting last.

Once again the result is e-mailed to the client for approval, and barring any changes, the commission is complete. Soon the painting is prepared for shipment, my time with the Fight Club painting comes to an end.

Every once and a great while I’ll watch a film that completely catches me off guard. The first time I saw Pulp Fiction, long before I knew who Quentin Tarantino was, I was fifteen years old. From the moment Jules shot the guy laying on the couch in the motel room, Pulp Fiction was as rough on me as the characters were to each other. Unpredictable and shocking, I felt I was watching real people commit these horrible and sometimes hilarious acts, instead of just characters in a movie.

That first impression remained with me when I began working on this painting. When I select a project to work on, I like to research it to locate any information that may inform which direction I’ll take the painting. In this case, I searched online for film reviews and the observation I found most common was that this film dealt with salvation and redemption. These are very powerful themes and I felt they worked nicely with my tendency to portray characters at their core. The most obvious use of this is my depiction of Butch, who I wanted to show at the moment he decides to save Marsellus Wallace, because I feel that speaks most truthfully to his character.

With the other characters I tended to pander more to my fifteen year old first impressions, with Jules being ruthless and cold and Vincent Vega and Mia Wallace exuding what I saw as cool. The color choices I used for the characters were also intended to reflect their personalities, in particular Mia’s face being red meant to signify lust and Vincent’s infatuation with her, and the blues in Jules’s face reinforcing his cold demeanor.

This painting was also the first time that the dimensions of the canvas reflected the widescreen aspect ratio of the film I was portraying, giving it a more cinematic feel. Another first in this painting is the inclusion of Easter eggs for those familiar with the film, such as the briefcase and Butch’s gold watch. Setting the painting in the diner also felt appropriate, as the scenes within it served to bookend the film.

Mostly my painting of Pulp Fiction was a sort of amalgam of my past and present perceptions of the film. To me the most enjoyable part of painting something is following the direction it will take and seeing how different themes or ideas can interact with one another.

It can be challenging to boil down an entire film into a single image, so instead of illustrating any particular scene I try find the major themes or overall concept of the film as I feel that will generate something much more powerful. With Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind I saw a film that underneath everything else in the story was about two people trying to make their relationship work despite themselves.

I especially liked how the characters of Joel and Clementine were opposites. Using different colors to express mood and emotion rather than natural skin tone is something I?ve been playing with for a while. The complementary colors blue and orange create a natural contrast within a composition and seemed fitting for Joel’s moody personality and Clementine’s extroverted nature. I also wanted their body language to reflect their states of mind, with their bodies turned away but their faces attempting to look at one another, hinting that these two have some hope in working things out.

The crumbling house is a fantastic visual metaphor for Joel and Clementine’s relationship. Compositionally I wanted the house positioned between the two characters, as if their failing relationship were a barrier preventing them from finding happiness with one another.

I have also been experimenting with how I render elements within a painting. With this one I utilized a greater degree of blending with the characters but left the background colors flat, in an attempt to establish a greater sense of depth. All the components of the painting such as color choices and painting techniques were used to heighten the juxtaposition between Joel and Clementine.