Featured Artists-Craig Burt Collection

Painting by Numbers

"Lover's Lament"

This painting is a bit more expressive in style than most of these Star Wars ones - referring to the background mainly - even though it is still relatively similar to the others.

1. Is the direct inspiration for the painting. It is one of the many Star Wars images that I've accumulated over time through my internet trawling. It appears to be a publicity shot from the A New Hope era (the first movie in 1977). What's represented in the photo obviously had a good association with the upcoming events of the Attack of the Clones movie.

2 & 2a. Are the faces that Anakin was based on. The usual applies; after finding the photo you want you may need to flip, rotate or alter to suit what you need before printing. 

3. We have the sketches done for the painting. You can see from these that I was naturally composing the image in the classical style with the positions of the heads and shadows. These did give a harmonious composition but that didn't feel right for this painting. The painting was to imply danger, dread or even death, so the heads needed to be more awkward in their position and feel. 

4. Is the image used for Padmé's face. This one allowed a more sad expression which was needed to convey the stress, sadness in the painting. You can see her face in this position in the fourth sketch but without the correct expression. 

5. Is the end point of the painting. The red and blue 'stars' in the background are a simplified representation of the dark and light sides of the Jedi. Looking back at the painting Padmé's face is very sad and Anakin's is relatively stiff; hopefully making some of you wonder if he might be dead. He did die in a sense whereas Padmé got the literal option. The one part that didn't work too well was Padmé's thigh/leg under Anakin's head, it does contribute to the visual stress in the image but I didn't match it well enough with her body position.

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