I’m very pleased to announce that I’m creating a poster for the Stratford Picturehouse of one of my favourite films of all time, which they’re screening on December 15th as a Christmas special. Technically of course it’s a Thanksgiving film, but seeing as we don’t celebrate that in the UK, temporarily adopting it as a Christmas film seems like a perfectly reasonable thing to do.

I must have been around 12 when I first saw it on television in the UK (with one famous scene in particular very obviously dubbed!), and although it was many years before I knew anything much about John Hughes in that pre-DVD era, the film definitely left a strong impression on me. In fact when Hughes passed away in 2009 I had actually planned to create a P,T and A poster as a tribute, but I simply ran out of time, so getting commissioned suddenly brought back all the ideas I’d been running through.

Steve Martin and John Candy are both in top form as the irascible advertising executive Neal Page and the irrepresible shower-curtain-ring salesman Del Griffith respectively. As with all great comedies, it’s the strength of the characters which draws you in, and Candy in particular brings an unexpectedly touching performance to bear on this simple story of getting from A to B with great difficulty.

Anyway, enough chit-chat from me. On this post I’ll be collating work in progress on the piece.

Updated November 24th – Neal Page is a tad frustrated, but at least he’s now been painted:

Updated November 23rd – I guess it won’t come as a huge surprise to learn that a grumpy Neal Page (Steve Martin) will also feature. Here’s the rough sketch:

Updated November 21st – Here’s Del in digital paint (I had planned to keep the hat flaps, er, flapping, but decided that it wasn’t going to work best with the overall composition I have planned):

First up, here’s my initial pencil sketch of Del Griffith: