Monday, July 30, 2007
ArtPact #25
I think I am back to painting! All that venting must have done something, and I am pulling myself out by the whitening roots of my hair (ribbon included...).
It happened on Thursday, as I was working on the agenda for our upcoming board meeting. In the background, the TV was playing a classic movie from 1964, called "The Pumpkin Eater". A movie in black and white, that had wonderful lighting on the faces of the characters. Now, one thing y'all need to know is that once you start getting into portraiture, you never look at a face the same way. You find yourself gazing at people like some freakish stalker, saying things like "Ah, you have such a wonderful light on your cheekbone!". Then they call the police. and you end up admiring the shadow shapes on the mugs of your inmates, but that's a whole different story.
Anyway - seeing all that wealth of faces, especially in black and white, which makes it so easy and tempting to capture, I went into my studio, grabbed a pencil, 2 tubes of watercolor, 2 brushes and a jar of water. I set them all onto lapdesk that The JohnnyB self-deludingly likes to call his . . .
. . . 30 minutes later (and several TiVo pauses later), I had these 2 bozzettos. Both watercolor on paper, each 5"x7". Apparently, I did get quite rusty during the long weeks sans watercoloring, but it's good to be back!!
As you can tell, the movie was not exactly a comedy. It's quite moody and dramatic, with many of the dialogues done wordlessly, only via facial expressions, so it went very well with the bleak colors I chose. I hereby present to you Anne Bancroft and Peter Finch, as they were 33 years ago.
By the way, I've finally finished watching the movie (which is very good, by the way) - and am still puzzled about the name. So, what's with the pumpkin???
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# posted by Nava @ 5:09 PM 
Comments:
Fabulous Nava
I really like these!
I think the movies title is referring to the nursery rhyme;
Peter Peter pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her, put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well.
I believe the movie is basically about female entrapment - being kept in a shell...
I feel so lucky...
Your blog has become to me, like a gallery.
# posted by 
: 7/30/2007 7:00 PM
before I read this post I was going to remark that these look like captured images from a B/W film, specifically film noir. Magnificent job!!!
Rhonda, THANKS for resolving the mystery. Needless to say, I've never heard this rhyme (or of it). Now it makes sense. It's A brilliant name.
Gallery. Eh? Now the pressure in on...
And thank you, Daniel!. It's reassuring to know that I managed to portray what I was after.
I happened to have turned on the TV and randomly turned to that movie too, and I usually don't watch TV at all during the day. Never heard of it before (the movie, that is)! The children did sing that nursery rhyme early in the film. I thought it was very good, and very sad.
Where can one find one of those - what'd'ya'call'em? - pumpkin shells?
...as they looked 43 years ago, btw. 1 year longer than I've been 'round.
From your "P-DNA" thingy; While you are good at thinking abstractly, focusing on details a bit more may help you discover things about the world.
Good advice to both of us, eh!
{-;-p
People prefer the way they looked 30 years ago. I think you could make a fortune painting portraits of people the way they looked 30 years ago. Well, except for those people 29 and under...
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I really like these!
I think the movies title is referring to the nursery rhyme;
Peter Peter pumpkin eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her, put her in a pumpkin shell and there he kept her very well.
I believe the movie is basically about female entrapment - being kept in a shell...
I feel so lucky...
Your blog has become to me, like a gallery.
# posted by : 7/30/2007 7:00 PM
: 7/30/2007 7:00 PM 
Gallery. Eh? Now the pressure in on...
And thank you, Daniel!. It's reassuring to know that I managed to portray what I was after.
...as they looked 43 years ago, btw. 1 year longer than I've been 'round.
From your "P-DNA" thingy; While you are good at thinking abstractly, focusing on details a bit more may help you discover things about the world.
Good advice to both of us, eh!
{-;-p
