Scissorhands - process

Here's a look at the process behind making my piece for Scissorhands 20th.


After playing with a few different thumbnails I settled on one. I then scanned it and tightened it up, digitally.


Danny Elfman's music is enchanting, in the truest sense of the word, in that you can be enchanted and transported by it. The score is one of the all time great soundtracks but the "Ice Dance" is especially beautiful.

Above. The thing is, there's no possible way to make anything that is better than this music.

I ended up with two variations of the "Ice Dance" moment from the film. I settled on the one on the right and from there went about to make the final piece.


Here is the original drawing and watercolor underpainting.

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And for the final, gallery show-able piece I decided to finish it in oil. Mostly because I can only get the watercolor so dark before it starts looking dead or I lose what I like of my linework too much. Either way a few simple oil washes give it a glow that doesn't come through in the scan. You can catch a little bit of magic in oil that I think has to do with the layers of paint trapping light in them. In any case I went to the idea in my original thumbnails of setting the scene in a snow globe.

Even this scan doesn't look as good as it might since the oil was still a little wet so the light from the scanner reflected off it and also I had it raised a little of the glass and that affects it some as well. I can't always say this but the original painting looks better than the pictures show. A lot of the time my drawings and paintings are a means to an end and in that sense the "originals" are pretty disposable. I have no problem with that. Whatever it takes to tell the story of the piece. As always, my ultimate goal is a well told piece in any medium.