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After sitting on this canvas for the better part of a year, I finally decided to tackle it with ferocity and determination. We now finish the sweep of the cooler colors around the left side, and push back the far wall by leaving it as the background wash color. I’ve also outlined the dials on the back wall and started roughing in the table.
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The painting stopped here for a long time because I got intimidated by the size. I let myself feel that way and started doing the Pop Portraits as practice, originally, so I didn’t ruin the big canvas. I painted my Pop Portraits, I got over it, I went back to the big canvas.
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I was painting Metropolis up on the easel for a while, but started laying it down as I was working with more and more water in my acrylics. This is a photo of my studio layout at the time with some of the progress visible. Below is a closer view of that progress. You can start to see the reflected light from the disco lightning ball in the center of the picture, some of the wall, and the outlines coming together. Still a far way to go.
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This is a series of photos of my tracing paper roughs from my sketches. The photos aren’t the best in the world, but they do give you the idea of the overall shapes of the painting. It is a high key painting, meaning that tonally the it is very light. This is due to the lightning, rings, and other flashing lights in the laboratory, making the shadows that are dark pop out of frame, giving the piece depth. My plan to to dull the colors as they recede into the distance to hint at atmospheric interference from the electricity. Below are some details from the roughs.
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Metropolis is a film directed by Fritz Lang that was released worldwide in 1927, before the advent of sound in film. It’s a masterpiece and worthy of your attention. The film has been almost completely restored over the years with some versions accompanied by the original musical scores that were sent along with the picture to be played by a live orchestra during the performance. Below is a small gallery of some of the reference photos I have been using for this painting.
A reference photo for Rotwang
