Tag: modern art

S_V_H No Rain by Blind Melon image 2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

No Rain image 2This is No Rain image 2 with the background completed for now.  Here is the album cover again so you can see some similarities, in stripping and colors.

blindMelonAgain,  this is a difficult artwork to visualize because the three canvases you are seeing are physically on different levels You can see these steps better with this side view of No Rain.

No Rain Side View

This background, that is a part of the trend lately, is rough in appearance. You are not seeing a lot of clean solid coloring. You are seeing  more transparency in the layering of colors, which creates uneven looks,  and variety in shading.  You are looking at an edgy, feisty, muddled, slipshod background,  but one that is organized in its mood, and presentation.  This I will counter when I portray the music in solid colors, and softer shading, like what you see in the video.

The music is next, so it will be off to the work shop to cut out the thirteen pieces needed to represent this music

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H No Rain by Blind Melon image1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen1 Comment

norain_1This is the artwork, No Rain, a tribute to the music of Blind Melon. This artwork consists of three panels of stretched canvas. The largest panel is 20 x 24 inches, and the two smaller upper canvases are each 12 x 16 inches. What I have done special here is that the flow of the music will be from the back canvas to the most forward canvas. It is hard to see in the image, but the upper left panel is two steps back, while the upper right is one step back, from the larger lower panel.

In this first image of the background you are seeing what an artwork looks like when you want to cover up the white of the canvas. Much of what you see will soon disappear under layers of brown,  yellow, and yellow gold paint based on the Blind Melon album cover:blindMelonThe album offers limited interest which works for the background,  only.  It is the Blind Melon’s video of No Rain, with its use of lighter, brighter  greens and blues, which I will used  for the music.

I chose this music specifically because of the words I picked to be displayed on this artwork. Those three words are ‘escape,’ ‘escape,’ and the third word is also ‘escape.’ Part of the reasoning is my mood, but mostly I chose ‘escape’  for that word repeated offers up a world of interpretation for the viewer.

Also, I chose this music because this group reminds me of a favorite group of mind from the sixties, Canned Heat.  Although I never purchased their albums, their music on the Woodstock album made a lasting impression. The reason I never purchased their music back then is because I was on fairly  sparse budget as a college student in Madison.  Each album buying decision was always a debate. I do remember having the money for some of the biggest artists, such as Ray Charles, or the Beatles  and their White Album.  I believe I paid around twelve dollars for that Beatles double album. I then taped it on my big reel to reel recorder and sold it.

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

S_V_H Sweet Little Angel final image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

sweetLittleAngel_finalSweet Little Angel came together, as an artwork, following by painting of this years Birthday artwork, Losing my Edge.  Before the Birthday painting,  the painting technique that I used for those vertical shafts that follow the music,  came from a fairly consistent past. The first step I would do would be to put down a base color, letting it dry. Then next I would spread, drying between layers, other colors.  What changed with the Birthday painting is that I did not wait for each layer to dry.  This new technique is to spread one color, and then another,  mixing them while still wet.

Returning to Sweet Angel, I then decided to paint over the shafts I had already finished. What I did different from Losing me Edge,  was to use an extremely heavy white first coat.  Then while that was still wet I would worked in a blue color that quickly tinted.  I liked this added thickness, that increased the depth of the work,  and I like the mixing of  wet colors mix that resulted in some interesting, and random looks.

The second difference that occurred in Sweet Angel, that came from the Birthday painting, was the drip painting I did all along that top curved line in the center panel.  Up to this work I have had the feeling that I was being a little rigid in the way I handled, what they call in the music world, the slurs and ties. This new method frees me up to better match the diversity that is music.

Sweet Little Angel will always be remembered for being the first work to use wooden cutouts for the flow of the music. This great Blues tune, painted in a variety of blue colors,  gives this artwork a great overall looked that matches its genre, that is further enhanced by the center panel with its contrasting tints of magenta.  This is a good painting, that easily goes beyond being a “good job.”

Scott Von Holzen