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!

OK Mozart - progress part 2 & interview

portion of 48" x 60", oil on canvas

Since I am taking progress photos of this piece for Lovetts Gallery, I thought I would go ahead and share. This is an update of the piece I'm working on for the OK Mozart event. Ten different artists are creating a music themed piece, and all are quite different. Visit the Lovetts Gallery blog to see updates from the other artists. There are some very cool pieces in the works.

Also, Michael Corbin just posted an interview we did. Michael Corbin is an art enthusiast, and has written several art books. Check my links section for his website. The interview is from about 2 years ago...I actually had forgotten all about it until I was cleaning out some old emails! Michael had apparently forgotten about it too...that's just how good it is! You can check it out here: Interview w/ Michael Corbin

OK Mozart

Lovetts Gallery has invited me to produce a music themed painting for this year's OK Mozart event. The gallery is posting photo and narrative updates via their blog, so I actually have forced myself to take "in progress" pics of my painting. Many artists do this on a regular basis, but I have never worked that into my routine. But, since I have some now I thought I would go ahead and share.
Like I mentioned, the painting is based on a music theme, and I want the viewer to make the obvious (and vague) connections between music and visual art. It's a fairly straightforward approach...hope I'm successful.

portion of 48" x 60", oil on canvas