Alexander Konstantinovich Petrov is an animator who works in the very complex—and therefore not widely practiced among animators—technique of “living painting.”
This technique has been known for a long time and is used around the world, but very rarely, since it is, one might say, a jeweler-like and extremely painstaking craft. Each frame is a genuine, standalone painting executed in oil paints, semi-transparent in one or two layers on glass that is backlit. As a tool, Alexander Petrov uses his own fingers, because you can feel the form better by hand. To keep the image more fluid, to prevent the paints from drying and to allow them to blend easily, the artist adds imported bicycle chain lubricant to them. Sometimes the master uses two or three layers of glass, which gives the frame a sense of air and more saturated color. The movement of the paint across the glass creates dynamism in the image. Also important is the rendering of details, through which the characters' emotions are conveyed. One moment of motion is painted, then filmed, after which the image is either destroyed or adjusted and the next frame is created. A cartoon may run for only 10 minutes, yet its creation can take a whole year or more, as was the case with Petrov's latest work, which took three years to make.
Despite all its complexity, this form of animation became Alexander Petrov's favorite, since it allowed him to convey with greater subtlety the full depth of the plot and the intensity of his characters' experiences. Indeed, his animated films are incredibly lyrical, poetic, and strikingly beautiful. Alexander Petrov's living painting are parable-like films with a philosophical subtext—an attempt to feel the human being in this world, to understand the meaning of existence. His films reach to the depths of the soul. They approach dreams: fragile, somewhat blurred and indistinct.
Four of Petrov's animated films were nominated for an Oscar, and in 2000 Alexander Petrov received the coveted statuette for the animated film "The Old Man and the Sea," adapted from the novel of the same name by Ernest Hemingway.
