Movie Studies (Patreon)

I really want to get back into the habit studying consistently. I stopped doing it months ago and I noticed the difference it made in my work, almost like I was going in the opposite direction of where I want to be. Instead of feeling sorry for myself about it, I just need to start doing it again. 

The header is a study I did the other day from, 'Farewell my Concubine' (Leslie Cheung was beautiful in this movie, and so was his performance.) The colors and lighting was very difficult for me, but I actually love how the mouth area and his hand turned out. It gave me the idea to do even more, so yesterday I did a bunch of thumbnailstudies. I blocked in colors and shapes instead of starting with line like I usually do, and I think it actually turned out alright! 

I found a film grain texture too?! Oh no, I love the way it looks...

One of my biggest goals is to have my painting style be a cross between movie stills and Old Master paintings like Sargent, and I know practicing like this will really help with that. Not only with color (which is something I struggle with all the time) but lighting, composition and storytelling. I also hope it will teach me a little more about how to paint edges, details and things like when a background blurs behind the camera's focal point. 

This actually isn't the first study I've done of this film either. These two were done in 2014, and I can definitely see the improvements I've made since then. I'm going to try and redo these two so I can really compare.

 I have a lot of films and shows that are very inspiring to me that I would love to do studies of, but I will start here for now and see where it takes me!