OK Mozart - final

Sounds Good, 48" x 60", oil on canvas

Finished! It's fairly obvious what my subject matter was: a euphonium. Well, maybe not obvious, but certainly you can tell it's some sort of shiny musical instrument. I wanted to use a reflective subject for my music themed OK Mozart piece, but really had no idea what kind of instrument to use or even how to get my hands on one. Then it dawned on me...I simply contacted Eddy Russell, Director of Bands, who is a fellow teacher at my school. He was generous enough to loan me a very photogenic euphonium to use as my reference. Once I popped the case open and put lights on it in my studio, I was amazed at how well it caught and twisted reflections. Little did I know at that time how challenging it would be to realize on canvas. But here we are many hours later and it's finished. I hope the parallels between music and visual art can be made, on some level, by everyone who sees it. The obvious are things like, movement, rhythm, harmony, etc. Less obvious connections can be found, and those are the more meaningful and personal ones.
This piece has nothing to do with Mozart specifically or even a genre of music. It is a symbol of music and nothing more. I intentionally tried to avoid that in every stage of this process to allow for individual connections.
Since this is a music themed piece, and I'm in the sharing mood(progress photos and such), I thought I would disclose the music I listened to while painting. I went through my entire collection of Godspeed You Black Emperor!, entire collection of The White Stripes(a couple of times). and Morphine(B sides and otherwise)....all of which covered about 12% of the time spent working on this piece!