Winning Entry

SOLD

One last post about Desire, and then I will quit talking about it.  Maybe.  This weekend was the reception for the Annual Juried Art Exhibition at the Preble Fine Arts Center, during which the winners were announced.  For the second year in a row, I took first place in the pastel category, which makes me think I must be doing something right.  This win is particularly meaningful since the piece is for a friend, who will actually be visiting during the show, and will get to see her painting hanging in a gallery with a first place ribbon beside it!

Poster style print now available

After a long absence due to other obligations (ie kids) I've decided to take the plunge into prints.  The first one will be a bit of an experiment, though I suspect it will have a ready built audience to some extent.  With the go-ahead of the owner of the original, I am now offering a print of the pastel, Desire, on fineartamerica.com.  Rather than going with a straight forward print though, I've made it more poster-like.  That way she still has a unique and original piece of artwork, but the general public gets something too.  And a guitar seems an appropriate subject for a poster.  The size of the poster is 12 x 16, which preserves the size of the original pastel while making the poster large enough to fit a standard size wall frame.

I'm hoping people will take this one to concerts with them this summer, on the off chance of getting a band member to sign it.  If you should get so lucky, I'd love to see your picture of my poster with The Edge's autograph on it!

I'm thinking about offering a few other prints with this same sort of template.  Photoshop can be a bit tricky since it can be so complicated, but I feel like I'm starting to get the hang of it.  The next one will probably be Nautilus, I'll post it once I get time to breathe.

For love or money

Desire 9x12 pastel, copyright 2001
SOLD!

Stepping outside my comfort zone again, this time for a friend.  I've never painted a musical instrument before and the various textures were challenging: the wood grain of the body of the guitar; the plastic (?) and painted gold leaf on the pick guard; and in particular the gold colored metal knobs.  Those knobs were the toughest part, they took hours and hours and were erased who knows how many times.  In the end I had to ignore the reference photo and all its extraneous information and just work from instinct.

A little bit more information about the subject is required, as this is not just any guitar.  Those of you old enough may recall the song Desire by the Irish band U2, dating to 1988.  This guitar (a Gibson ES-295, so I am told) was played by The Edge during the recording of that song.  A few years ago it was sold at an auction to benefit Music Rising, a charity that raises money to replace instruments for musicians, churches and schools in New Orleans that were lost during Hurricane Katrina, a charity in which The Edge is heavily involved.  It was won by a friend of a friend.  That friend took the reference photo, which I used with her permission.  It had such dramatic lighting, I couldn't pass it up.  And I know she will appreciate the effort as only a serious fan a could.