Stalenhag inspired painting #3

This is my third painting and last (for now) based on Stalenhags work. In my previous pieces I'd focused on adding towers and large structures grouped into three's. So with my final image I wanted to draw inspiration from a painting of his that doesn't reoccur as much as the tower theme.
I also wanted to add in some of my own style in there by being a bit looser with the painting and to go for more of a painterly feel but at the same time try to capture the feeling of stalenhags dystopian style.

The Image above is the main stalenhag inspiration for this piece of work created using his method.

   
I Started by using one of the photos I'd taken previously for this project. I removed some ripples from the river and blocked in a flat piece of land under the bridge that I had originally planned to have the animatronic mascot crashed on. eventually it changed location to be lying flat down on the river bed but the piece of land then served the purpose of having wires being trailed onto it. It was an overcast day when taking this photo so I didn't have to edit much in terms of getting the lighting and colours correct for this painting.

I wanted to set the scene in more of an autumn/winter scene to go along side the dead and decaying looking animatonic in the river. I added a billboard with the mascot on to provide some subtext to the main focus point. I also painted over the grass and re shaped it to be less over grown and have more brown winter tones in there instead.

The problem I was facing was that the mascot in the river wasn't looking robotic enough so I had to decay it and show more of it's mechanics. I looked at machines and robotic joints as reference when deciding on the design. I wanted these bits to feel familiar to the viewer so that it was easily identifiable as a robot. I also added lights to the billboard turning it into more of a dusk/ evening timed painting and to help draw attention to the area where it's needed.

  

 I finished it by going into more detail and making areas that need it pop a bit more. such at the details on the robot and some of the grassy area in the foreground.

Out of the three paintings I made using stalenhags process I feel as though this one works and looks best. The bridge gives something very strong and familiar for the audience to first look at and understand before seeing the surreal part of the painting that's unusual giving it the dystopian feeling that Stalenhag creates in his work. With my other two pieces the first one especially there isn't much else to look at apart from the area of the painting that feels strange and unreal so this is why I believe the other's didn't work quite as well. Some of Stalenhags pieces do focus purely on the unusual side but he's able to get away with this as he's already painted and created the world for these dystopian designs to live in, meaning the world is already established. As I haven't established much of a world in my three paintings I thought it best to focus on wider shots to include the landscape and area surrounding the designs I was putting in.

It felt alot nicer painting this piece. One because by this stage I was more comfortable with  painting and building my image up in the same way as stalenhag, and two because I allowed myself to paint a little more loose in my regular style and because of that the image doesn't look as forced as I feel my others did. Maybe that's something only the person painting can pick up on but I can definitely see the difference between following Stalenhags method as well as painting style and following the method but letting myself use my own style in how the painting turned out.