Yeah, Life Was Just A Bet On A Race Between The Lights

Back to business and it’s the business of creating posterised watercolour portraits for the benefit of any visiting PAOTY judges. Pulp Fiction was on the telly again a couple of weeks ago and, full respect to Tarantino, there’s barely a single shot in the film that wouldn’t make a great subject for a painting. Today I’ve picked a shot of Uma Thurman as Mia Wallace, just back home from an evening out with Vincent Vega, played by John Travolta (a character on my portrait waiting list). Mia’s black bob of hair makes for a good posterised painting, being destined to appear s a large dark shape before even consulting the Notanizer app.

Being a late night scene, I thought it would work with the blue colour scheme, as outlined here. The one change I made to my usual process was in response to a ChatGPT comment on an earlier painting. After masking out the highlights and before adding the first, cerulean blue wash, I painted a little bit of rose dore over the cheek, the tip of the nose and the lips. Just to add a little warmth and to break the monotony of the blue colour scheme. With the value plan for this one being one of the simpler four value plans, this painting was easily completed within four hours, which bodes well for any possible PAOTY appearance. And that’s even including a few tweaks after the making fluid came off.

I think this painting is a success and it’s going up for sale with the price to be found here. The likeness isn’t 100% perfect but there’s something about the nose. It looks heavy, suggesting it’s blocked, probably with copious amounts of Colombian marching powder. I’m naming this one after a line from Telegraph Road that seems to fit it and that needed ticking off my list.