Author: Scott Von Holzen

I am currently renewing an artistic adventure that first started in 1974, and ended in the early 1980's. A casual comment restarted the quest in art in 2004. Now, at night I am surrounded by artworks done and in progress, shelves full of art books, my music collection playing through a classic NAD amp and a pair of solid, classic free standing speakers, my piano, violin, blues guitar, and saxophone. So all is musical no matter what I am up to in the studio. Since I was a kid I have had the urge to be creative Now, in my later sixties, I am determine to know. I want to follow this to the end to see what these paintings, and all this music amounts to. This is probably the last great adventure I will have, so I am all in. So, watch out for nonstop music, canvases with multiple panels, with paint spread thick or dribbled on, words with meaning, and results that will challenge, push the meaning of music, and may even splash back. This blog's real purpose is to document my story in the making, and you are welcomed to follow along. Thank you for your support. Scotty Von Holzen

S_V_H New Like A Rock image2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

For now the background is finished for this second Like a Rock project, and to my surprised it turned out better than I expected. Even though I stock many different canvas sizes I was lucky to find two sizes that where a close match to the dimensions of the client requested Chevrolet logo.  Because silver surrounds the logo I decided I would do the same with angled aluminum.  The problem was the difficulty in finding decent lengths of aluminum that where not marred or scratched. I searched three stores to find enough aluminum for this project. That made me realized that the issues of marring and scratching using aluminum needed to be resolved.

What resulted was that I learned that rubbing compound works for cleaning, and triple and quad zero wool removes most flaws, giving the aluminum a clean-looking finish. Finally,  using a Dremel with a buffing wheel gives me an extra backup for removing the worst mares and scratch marks.

Next up I will be placing the music.  For the music I went to the local Chevrolet dealership with a color chart to narrow the range of possible blues.  On my second trip to the dealership I  compared my painted test samples to what I call the “Chevy blue”  you see in this example:

With the help of my wife it turned out that the best option, for the music,  was a slightly tinted Primary Cyan.  I know my color pallet for this artwork is extremely limited.  That means adding contrast and interest to this artwork will probably be limited to those colors already in the background, or shades and tints of the music color. That may be an interesting challenge, something only commission work offers.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H New Like A Rock image1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

Here is the first image of the commission work to create an artwork based on the Chevrolet, Like a Rock commercial,  that ran from 1991 to 2004.

The client wanted to include the Chevrolet logo, and as you can see I have done that. It is amazing that my experiences of using aluminum and canvas to create some pretty good Artworks, would be put to use to make a reasonable facsimile of an automobile nameplate.  Fascinating.

Scott Von Holzen

Mini-Artworks from Für Elise to Ode to Joy

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Artwork acrylic paint, with aluminum and wood features, 20 1/4 x 12 inches high.

This is Beethoven’s Für Elise that is part of a Series of Mini artworks that includes works  by Chopin, Bach, and Mozart.  These Series of mini-Artworks, priced between $200 to $400 dollars, are for the local art market and their size and convenience might work for Art Fairs.  But, my take is that most Art Fairs are held outside, at best are quality Craft Fairs with high expenses, have unpredictable weather, lots of time-wasting lookers, and  few buyers for this style of Art, that is totally out-of-place in a 40 dollar yard art craft environment.  That means this year I will be searching for compatible indoor places to market these mini artworks.

Für Elise is place inside a 18 x 24 inch shadow box that I have removed the glass.

 All of these Mini-Artworks are part of name Series. This means for the mini-artwork Series, Für Elise, they are each signed, dated, and numbered on the back. This Für Elise is obviously No. 1 in this Series. Right now I have two other  Beethoven’s in Series. They are Beethoven 5th Symphony, and my latest Beethoven,  Ode to Joy.

Ode to Joy artwork will be in a pop-up Gallery show sponsored by ArtFly the last Saturday in February. The show’s theme is audience participation works.  In order to make my art interactive I added the music the artwork represents.

I am not thinking of adding music to all these mini works or my major Artworks. The music for Ode to Joy and the two other works in the Art Fly show came from Wikipedia’s List of free Sound Files.

Für Elise and Ode to Joy are both the largest in these Series of mini artworks.  They are time-consuming so they have an introductory price of $349. Right now I am trying to see if this area has a market for these larger beauties or even the smaller lower price mini-artworks.

Scott Von Holzen