Category: Music

S_V_H Sweet Little Angel image 1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

sweetLittleAngel_1This video of Sweet Little Angel shows B.B. King’s totally immersed in the music.  The sounds from Lucille, his guitar, flow through his fingers up and out through his voice and facial expressions.

Sweet Little Angel is a music in art two canvas composition, forty inches by about twenty-eight inches in height. This is the third in this current series of small works. This artwork is a part of a larger experimental trend of putting a lot more effort in the taping and applying of the paint, to increase the drama  and aggressiveness,of the backgrounds. I no longer want backgrounds whose main purpose is to provide a decorate look to hang the music on. I am seeing in the early stages of these artworks compositions that on their own could be seen as abstract art. Still, my true goal of these advanced super charged backgrounds remains consistent with the past, to set the mood, and anchor the music in its rhythmic movement across the canvas.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H The Ghost of Tom Joad image 4

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

theGhostOfTomJoad_5

This is the painting The Ghost of Tom Joad in a late stage. I have completed all the important parts of this artwork.  Next up I will be adding interest, and cleaning up the image. I do not have much to add about this work beyond you are seeing, in this painting,  pieces of styles from a number of earlier works. But, if you scroll down the blog page and look at the Billie Holiday painting,  I just completed, you will see an entirely different style. What that shows is that this art does not evolve from work to work, but instead it comes from the music that I am portraying.  Up to now you are seeing an overall style evolution partially driven by the chosen music, but probably also pushed on because I do not want this art to stand still. As I have said many times in the past, I am persevering in this fine art quest to find out how it will actually turn out. I want to know ‘does he really make it in the art world.’ To get to that end, duplicating myself is the last thing I want to do. Evolving from the past is good and necessary, repeating begins the end. This art can fail in multiple ways, but it must not me that is the cause.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H The Ghost of Tom Joad images 3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

 

theGhostOfTomJoad_3The Ghost of Tom Joad before removing the tape I used to cover the flow of the music.

theGhostOfTomJoad_4Of course this is The Ghost of Tom Joad after removing tape. I have tried this experiment  before but not to this extent. I do not think I will do it this way in the future.  I am thinking differently about how this should be done. Next time I will just indicate the general areas where the music flow will land, and then pull the layers of paint across these areas with more care.  By doing this l am thinking that each layer will be thin and soft enough that masking the music will not be worth the time spent masking.

I can see the need for a lot of touch up after removing the tape. Also, I found, especially trying to mask out the circles, that the taping overlapped, which then made the layers that cover the tape thicker. That has created a lot more finishing issues.

The base painting is done, so now it is on to the music and smoothing out the transition between the music and the background. I save the blues and their relatives, for the music. What that means even though I am trying to stay with earth tones, * brighter colors are going to creep back into this work. I can not help.

Scott Von Holzen