Featured Artists-Craig Burt Collection

Painting by Numbers

"Heartware"

If I remember rightly, with this one I decided to do a simple portrait of Anakin. 

1. I had an idea of what I wanted to do, so I looked for suitable inspiration from somewhere. That was found in this photo from a piece of 'junk mail'. I think Americans would call that a 'flyer' - they're free catalogues that you get in your mailbox - and I'd imagine most places in the Western World would have similar things.

1a. Is Anakin from the Episode II Visual Dictionary. This was the major reference for the painting. You can see that the lighting of the costume in the painting is very similar to the photo, even though the poses are not the same.

2. Are the sketches done for the painting. The three figure sketches were done to try and figure out how the 'leather' would fold under the weight of Anakin's hand. Also, I didn't use a photo of Anakin for the face - probably didn't have an Episode III one at the time - and you can see two detailed shots at getting his likeness from thin air. 

2a. Is another photo from the Episode II Visual Dictionary used for reference.

3. Is the final painting. The painting was meant to express Anakin's war weariness, the stress of his hidden marriage and his internal turmoil to come. Hence the hand on heart pose - his heart is weary, his will is weary, even his soul is weary of the stress. The change of his left hand from open on his leg to a clenched fist also conveys this tension. The reduction of the size of his head also gives more weight to his body and adds to the feeling of wear and tiredness. The red and blue stripes in the background imply the dark and light sides as represented by lightsabers.

4. This is the reason for the dates on the bottom of numbers 3 & 4. I remember getting a bit of a shock when seeing this photo from Episode III. Though the pose isn't exactly the same, the photo always reminded me of the painting done three months earlier - it just seemed to have a similar feel. I also found it funny that I'd decided to put two food capsules on the right side of Anakin's belt and then he appears with the same in the photo. One thing I didn't get right though was the rumored - at the time - scar on his face. I'd put it across his left eyebrow when it ended up being on his right. Had a 50/50 shot - provided it was on his eyebrow - and missed it!

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