One day while driving in my car I heard the song "Every Breath You Take" by the Police. I've heard the song a million times, but on this particular day, it reminded me of my uncle who had commited suicide in 1994, and it made me want to create this painting video.
The complete process for the painting and video took about two months, mostly to locate all of the photographs used in the video. Its a very large gallery sized acrylic painting on canvas. I created the painting on video over a period of about a week, going back to the location every day at sunset to work on the painting.
This is my favorite video of all the ones I've made. Its a very personal painting. It's a painting of my Uncle who was a very talented guitarist and drummer. He was a very beautiful and special person who had a lot to offer the world. He was very close to me and my family and it was a very devastating event for my family that took years to get over. It has now been over 15 years since it happened, but it was still difficult and emotional to create this painting and to look at his photos. At times it was like I was going through it all again. But I wanted to do something very special when I painted a portrait of him, and I wanted to do something that might possibly help someone else by putting a message in the video about suicide prevention. And I want other people going through something difficult to know that life can be hard sometimes, but it always gets better. And if my uncle had been able to realize that, he would be with us now.
At the end of the video, you will see that on the last day of shooting something special happened. We could not see it happening live, but when we looked through the camera as it was recording, we could see a beautiful ray of sun shining directly onto my uncle's photo. We allowed the camera to film as long as we could to capture it. Even as the sun went down, the ray of sun stayed on my uncle's photo. This never occured on any other day.
Thank you for watching.
If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide and would like someone to talk to
you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at
1-800-273-TALK
REMEMBERING TOM
A photo montage video
with the music
"To Make You Feel My Love" by Adele
My Paintings are available on Etsy
My Websites : TheArtofVenus.com and Art-Star.net
My Facebook Page VenusArt
My Twitter Page VenusOfficial
