Tag: ART

S_V_H It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday image 1 & 2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

 

 

itSoHard_1It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye is a painting consisting of three canvases, with a length of fifty-two inches.  I have three images to show how I advanced the background for this music.

When you get to the third image is of the ,done for now. Next up I will be placing in the music flow, once I have cutout the music.

IitsSoHard_2

itSoHard_3Below is my attempt to learn how to simile, without looking silly, like I lost it, or fiendish, the last thing that I am. I would say I achieved none of those goals. Actually, I will be including more pictures of me with the artwork, to better the connection between me and all you readers, viewers, visitors, or whoever, or whatever you are. My thinking is that I would like to counter the fact that I do not see a lot of Blog sites that have images of the Blogger. I have already added a Contact option to this Blog, to again add another point of connection. It is a learning, and understanding process I am trying to development to better connect with the public,  and not by becoming a door-to-door peddler of this art.itSoHard_3b

Let me get back to the story of this artwork, and why I picked this music for my last artwork for 2015. Early May I attended the funeral of my favorite Uncle, Walter Von Holzen. He was the first family member that had graduated from college. He was the one that said to me, why would you go to the tech when you can go to the University of Wisconsin.  I took his advice,  and it and he changed me.

Then within a couple of weeks later we had to put Roxy, our favorite cat down.  She was dying from an eye disease,  and starvation because of it. Having to make that decision made for some emotional moments.

Then in mid September I received a distraught call, at work, from my step brother, telling me that my Father had passed away. I thought I would handle this better than I did with Mom’s passing, but I have not. It is a Life reality check when you lose both of your parents, the only people you have known all of your days.

Finally, our favorite, Aunt Selma, who was still mentally sharp at 95 years old until she contracted pancreatic cancer quickly past away in October.

All of this,  and the need to consider other life changing decisions has had an impact on me.  And yet, I have found ways to move myself, and this art ahead, probably with the help of my Mother.  She told me many times, “Never cut yourself short.”  She must have always knew how lucky I was, but she obviously also thought that I needed constant reminding.

Life really comes down to what you do with the opportunities that present themselves in good times and bad. It then come down to this: It up to us yet type of people, to carry on knowing that the best is yet to come, that Time has granted us all a pardon, and oh by the way, just as a reminder,  don’t forget to never cut yourself short.

This painting will look back. This painting will also carry me,  into a better 2016 with these words from the music, ” And I’ll take with me the memories to be my sunshine after the rain.”

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

S_V_H Embraceable You Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

embraceableYou_FinalEmbraceable you is finished. This painting comes from a Jazz Standard piece written  by George Gershwin in 1928.   This artwork consists of four canvas panels over sixty-four inches in length, and is larger than I had originally planed. What changed this artworks dimensions was my decision to add extra words, and then increase their size.  To make room for the larger font I needed to use larger canvases, which then required me to enlarge the music.

In the original plan I wanted to keep this artwork on the smaller size because of this music’s absence of drama (no slurs or ties, no flags, or beams), but my focus  changed from the music to the words to at least add some interest. That changed in direction created  a problem, absent if I would have used smaller canvases, of what to do with all that space between the music.  After a couple of, what I would consider,  tired attempts at stripping I realized I had nothing. That is when I turned to the painting, I Won’t Dance, a Jerome Kern Jazz Standard from the same time period as Embraceable you.  I Won’t Dance uses Art Deco treatments to mirror the times, and I thought a similar look might work with Embraceable.

IWontDance_Final

To start with I added narrow gold and blue striping across the entire work. That gave it the Art Deco look which did greatly improved the interest and the character of Embraceable.  I then repainted some of the original stripping to improve the contrast, and to blend better with the music.

I actually had to learn like this work. It fell out of favor early in its development, probably because of the changes I made to the original plan.  It got worse when I  questioned the colors used for the music.  I felt my color choices, chosen for their feminine look, where to close in tone which made the music appeared to have a plastic  look.  It was not until I added the Art Deco touches that I realized that the music worked fine with the new look of background.  In the final image you see how everything came together.

My feelings for this artwork have certainly changed a lot since I first chose this music.  I now think Embraceable You does achieved an interesting,  and unique look, that I like. This painting should feel very good about itself, getting out of me, what it needed.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

 

 

 

S_V_H Embraceable You image1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

embraceableYou_1

Embraceable You is larger painting consisting of four canvas panels measuring sixty-four inches by about twenty-four inches high.

Here are three different videos showing different styles for Embraceable You. Many of my artworks try to do the same thing by displaying different looks from one panel to the next.  I do this on purpose to better show the versatility that is in the music.  By using variety in looks I can, in this one way,  then push this art way beyond the limitations of sheet music. That has always been my goal since I started painting music. Music has no limitations, and so should not this art.

First,  is an upbeat version of Embraceable You from the 1943 movie Girl Crazy sung by a young Judy Garland.

Now,  compare that performance of Embraceable You with this one by Wynton Marsalis at the 1989 Newport Jazz Festival

And here is, I believe,  the 1947 Bluesy recording of Embraceable You, Commodore 7520B, sung my Billie Holiday that made it into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

This may seem obvious, but an important point that most music,  like this one piece, can have multiple interpretations.

Surprisingly in image 1 you are seeing a  style change in this artwork. What created this change was my decision in how I was going to handle the lower parts of the first two canvases.   These two canvases contain the main words chosen for this artwork, and I had a concern that the stripping I had along the bottom of both panels would not allow the words to stand out. The easiest solution, one that I have used in the past, was to darken the background where the words where to appear.  That is what I tried with a darker green.  What I found myself doing, though,  was backing off the color to allow the under stripping to stay visible. I decided to go against a solid block look I original thought that I needed for the words.

When I removed a small strip of tape, that I had forgotten along the lower edge, the original stripping remained.  At first I thought that this mistake needed to be over painted,  and then  I saw a new opportunity to finish the background in a different way.  I could still do the stripping, similar to what I have done in the past,  but now I would apply a transparent layer across the entire painting.  By taping sections before hand,  I found then I could keep the uniqueness of each panel, but create a result that brings all four canvases together as a single artwork, representing a single piece of music.

Finding a way to pull this work altogether was an early concern for me because of this music. My stripping, for this painting,  consisted of the two end panels having a similar coloring,  and the second and third panel each portraying a unique look.  This kind of diversity is a common technique I have used before, such as in Heavens’ Wall, but for this music something did not feel right.

To try to resolve these misgivings I did try ideas to shade or draw in some curves and lines to break up the background stripping, like in Heaven’s Wall,  but I washed off all of my attempts.  It was not until I pulled that small piece of tape, that I saw my answer. In a way, I am reversing the look of the background. Now, instead of trying to cover up, or break up, sections of the stripping, I apply tape to cover up some of the original stripping, and then paint over the entire background with a  transparent color  I accomplished the goal of pulling all four panels together, removing my misgivings.  This then is new look for my backgrounds that may  allow me to involve away from the experimental Cubist and Futurists ideas of line and shading.

This blog entry has taken some extra time, so here is Embraceable You with the music flow in place.

embraceableYou_2

Scott Von Holzen