Comfortably Numb

A fourth consecutive painting named after a song title. There’s a clip on YouTube of David Gilmour playing a clip of Purple Rain in the middle of Comfortably Numb as a tribute to Prince. After yesterday’s Purple Rain, I thought I should have a go at a Comfortably Numb painting. I thought Gilmour’s trademark way of standing with one shoulder higher than another might make for a recognisable silhouette and I wanted to have lots of colours in the background reminiscent of a Floyd/Gilmour concert, while not wanting to replicate what you see at one of those concerts.

The four colours today were quinacridone magenta, French ultramarine, cadmium yellow and sepia. I started with a thin underpainting of the magenta, to give an underlying pink glow. I used cadmium yellow rather than Indian yellow because of its opacity – I wanted my yellow to be yellow and Indian yellow, being transparent, might have come out too orangey with the magenta behind it. There are some special effects there from salt, granulation fluid and some kitchen paper imprints.

The “sky” is the only bit about the painting that I like. The blending and granulation are good and the radial lines definitely add something. The Gilmour silhouette isn’t quite as recognisable as I wanted: I expect people can guess who it is but only from the colours in the rest of the painting. The sepia shadows at the front are just wrong and should really have been mixed from the three primaries used in the rest of the painting. And, finally, the “stage” is too empty and boring.

This was more popular than I expected it to be both on Facebook and in the Q1 2019 survey.  It’s been sold to someone who handed it over to a big Gilmour fan as a birthday present.  Happy birthday Sam!