Méliès' 'A Trip to the Moon'

Sarah and I were fortunate enough to visit Lyon, France this past autumn, and as a part of our wanderings, we visited the Lumiere Museum, which showcases the art, craft and process of early film making and photography. 

One of the films referenced in the museum was George Méliès' 1902 adventure, 'A Trip to the Moon' - the first sci-fi film ever created. 

I loved 'A Trip to the Moon' as a kid as it seemed so whimsical and weird. As it was inspired by Jules Verne's 'From the Earth to the Moon', Méliès' work was the start of my love of pulp science fiction which moved on to 'War of the Worlds' and 'John Carter of Mars' and of course, 'Star Wars'. 

Anyway, on Cults3D I found this wonderful 3d design by Printorama3d of the iconic image of the Moon's face with the space bullet in its eye. I thought it would be a great excuse for me to drag out my monochrome paints to try to give it a greyscale treatment.

As with my old 'Great War in Greyscale' project, I tried to incorporate both warm and cool grey tones to differentiate the face, the surrounding moon, and the crashed spacecraft. Thankfully, I keep an old Moleskin notebook that has all my paint recipes in it, so I could reacquaint myself with how I did these things in the past. I'd be totally lost without it. 

Even though it's a small and simple piece, I found it comforting to return to this style of painting after all these years. 

Thanks for dropping by!

- Curt