Documentary segment about Tales of Hoffmann

The Tales of Hoffman. I is an opera that I, I want, I wanted to do. I had made a painting, uh, several about 10 years before that. And then I decided to do the, the because I wanted to share it with more people. When we were

Children, my mom would, uh, play the Metropolitan Opera on Saturdays when we were washing clothes and we would help her hang the clothes. And so we got to listen to them and you as a kid, you know, you're, you don't wanna listen to anything like that.

But then eventually, as I got older, I, I started to find, uh, things that I liked about it and I loved the music, you know, but the, uh, the Tales of Hoffmann, it has this beautiful melody called a bar. And when I was a child, I,

I played the violin and I played that piece. So that's another thing that makes me interested in it. But I love the idea of, uh, where people could go and there would be music and art and, you know, all the pageantry and drama that, that the

opera brings. And to me it, it's, it's like how people can do things that are beautiful and great and put everything they can to make something really wonderful and make and give people uh lift their spirits. The beginnings usually are small drawings. This is a, a

drawing that I did of a, a sketch of what I thought of the uh just a very quick sketch of the Tales of Hoffman. And uh and that, that's how I begin things usually from very loose drawings in the Hoffman. It was done cumulative. So I,

I print a color, I let the, the uh a silk screen dry and then I start drawing my next color. And so it's all cumulative. But so this is color 16. This is a transparent color and um this was colored 19 and 20. So I printed

the, sometimes I have to print it small sections in order to keep the alignment. And this was so critical because it had to fit their faces, the shapes of their clothing. And then uh this one had a blend where it was very dark and it went

to lighter, a lighter blue and, and see, I keep emphasizing the waves and the movement of the water. So there's a lot of drawing even though it just looks like it should just be blue. But I, but the blue is more than just the blue, it's

water moving. This is number 24. And you can see uh how I've shaded areas, how I've added, I, I'm, this is a transparent color and it's, it's going over other colors. And so uh it'll just enrich in them and make them more deep. Uh This is

number color 22. This is a trans another transparent color, but it's also going to go over and give more enrichment to uh to what's underneath it. It's even under the water and here's another blue, this is a turquoise. And also I keep, I keep putting more

and more blues over, they're transparent. So they keep making the color deeper and deeper. And these colors keep emphasizing the, the, the water and the um the beau the beautiful color on and this one where you can see when I'm printing it. Um I'm also testing

colors to make sure it's what that color is gonna uh affect what's underneath it and how it's going to look. And so III, I paint it with a brush or I use my finger and I just see what's gonna happen to the color. So you can

see it at a very early stage. Uh As sometimes you get surprised when you use colors that that doesn't it, what you expect doesn't happen. But still sometimes you have to work with what does happen. So you're just seeing a panorama of all the different uh

drawings that went in to make um the final work. This one is a, a transparent color of red like this is covering a lot, but it's also um enriching the color underneath it. And this is like a shadow on the curtains. This is a proof with

20 colors and it, it's still very rough and still a lot to go on it. And this is with 49 colors. If you look at the resolution and the for after 49 printings to get like real uh finished look of the orchestra and their faces and

their instruments, so much care was taken to accomplish that. But as each application of color, you keep trying to finish it, you keep trying to refine it from here, I'd like to go up to the, the very elaborate buildings. They're like baroque buildings like and especially

this one with all kinds of details, like a beautiful old uh building in Venice. The other aspect would be the the curtains, the shaping and shading of the curtains to give it the feeling of, of shadow and, and bright light.