Joker

Joker is one of those films, like Jaws or Blues Brothers, that, while not being in my all time top ten, draws me in if I find it on an obscure channel late at night. Once I’ve seen sixty seconds, I’m hooked and can’t turn away. Joaquin Phoenix puts in one of the all time great performances and is perfect portrait material. I was in the mood for the crystalline watercolours today, a medium that never comes out quite right, so fitting for this subject.

I used the Notanizer app to create a three value plan, put the shapes down on paper in pencil, and then:

• masked out all the highlight areas and added a tiny twinkle in the eye. I make loads of accidental drips in the background, so added some more spatters there, something that wasn’t in my original plan but I’m flexible
• sprinkled loads of different colours overtone dark areas and painted them in with water, trying to mix the colours as little as possible
• sprinkled loads of different colours over the medium tone areas, sprayed them with water and dabbed the paper as dry as I could make it with kitchen paper

And after removing all the masking fluid, that was me done.

The likeness isn’t perfect – let’s get that out of the way first. But this is an interesting painting. The crystalline watercolours are ways full of surprises and they’ve outdone themselves here. It’s as if they’ve caught Arthur Fleck in the middle of a Hulk-style transition to the Joker. There’s the white face, the red round the mouth, bits of yellow on the face, bits of green in the hair and a white highlight on the chin that looks like a V For Vendetta mask. As well as all the usual cauliflower craziness all over the place. Arthur’s up for sale.