Creating Abstract Artwork to Music: Hans Zimmer's "soul-reaching" Cornfield Chase
For me, listening to music while painting is one of the most exciting and satisfying ways to create abstract work
I discovered this process - and how much I love it - while working on my Illustration degree earlier this year. This post will take you through, step-by-step, and also show how the artwork also became an album and CD cover, demonstrating the versatility and scope of such a process.
I chose Hans Zimmer, Cornfield Chase - the "live in Prague" version here - for this project, one of my favourite pieces of all time.
After listening once without drawing, I created a warm-up piece in my A3-size sketchbook.
In terms of materials, I worked with willow charcoal and a red Posca pen.
The music and the muse
The music starts off quietly with an off-key piano melody that’s mysterious and haunting. Then the strings join in with the melody playing over the top (this is where I’m making sweeping movements as I draw with the side of the charcoal, leveraging the broadness of the stick). Then comes in the harmonious melody that the song is famous for, it’s soft and hopeful and it builds and builds sending chills and goosebumps through your body. (At this point I’m still using charcoal but the end, so it’s a stronger mark on the page).
You know that the music is building to something, that something is going to happen. Then the base begins adding the depth and the orchestra including the percussion join in along with the trumpets and wind instruments – this is where there are staccato-type sounds and beats. The sound builds and builds and then suddenly it stops with a boom. (The final third of the piece is mostly where I’m using the red Posca pen, as it’s more staccato and uplifting and building.)
I then listened to the music again and created this piece:
I made long-sweeping lines for the softer, calmer parts, dots and sudden jerky lines for the more staccatoed and frantic sounds that appeared, while strong build ups were interpreted with the tip of the willow charcoal.
Next we had to stand back, review the work and ask ourselves: “What single word describes my experience of this music?”
My answer to this question is “soul-reaching”.
This music, somehow, reaches into the depths of my soul.
Next we needed to choose a square from the piece that felt the most connected with our adjective.
My goals when looking for a piece were that it had strong visual balance, it contained interesting textures and marks and could stand alone as an image. It also needed to represent the music piece and the adjective as best as possible.
I looked at a few different options using the square lens on my iPhone and concluded that this image spoke to me the most in terms of identifying with “soul-reaching” in alignment with the music composition.
I chose a 25cm x 25cm canvas to reproduce this section, so that I could work with acrylics. I used tracing paper to map the lines from the image so that I got them in the right place so that I could then place the shapes in the original places.
The result looked like this:
Keeping my “soul-reaching” adjective in mind, I wanted the piece to feel as though it hit the soul, the emotions, deeply – through broad strokes – while at the same time included lots of marks and details, showing the build up and the franticness of some parts of the track.
I listened to the music on a loop while I worked on the painting.
I worked with the selected square part of the image above my canvas, which I’d printed out. Then I used black and red acrylics – with a palette knife and brushes – to replicate, as well as add to, the shapes and strokes.
You can see me working here in this video adding acrylic with the palette knife (apologies if the music is loud, I can't control it via this platform, please lower it manually when the video plays - thank you!)
I decided to also work in pen and ink (with a TWSBI fountain pen and waterproof carbon ink), then white Posca pen and black Derwent Lightfast pencils to add more black shade where it felt needed – this worked well on the canvas as it brought out the texture even more.
Watch me add details with the TWSBI fountain pen (again, apologies if the music is loud, I can't control it via this platform, please lower it manually when the video plays - thank you!):
After applying white Posca pen – still while listening to the music – I added additional markings and shade with the black Derwent colour pencil.
Dadaaa, the final piece:
To continue exploring the scope of the artwork, I did mock up of an album and CD cover.
I drew out a futuristic-looking title of ‘Cornfield Chase’ and then used a more traditional serif font to write out the composer’s name, Hans Zimmer, as this is how it tends to look on his existing albums.
To create a textured look on the font I layered black under white, then over the top of the white I used red pencil and then layered white pencil marks on top of that.
Hans Zimmer was placed on two opaque black boxes and a filter applied to pick up the texture and movement of the artwork underneath so it continues to show up through the lettering.
Vinyl mock up:
CD mock up:
Safe to say that I loved every minute of this project and have been creating abstract work to music ever since! Obsessed!
Thanks for reading xx
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