Tag: Prince

S_V_H Purple Rain image 4

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

purpleRain_4

Purple Rain the artwork is taking on it own personality, and direction. It is enjoyable to try to capture some of the feel of Prince, but it is more fun to let go of the work to develop without the feeling of obligation to this superstar performer.  It is an artwork, and not so much a tribute painting, but more so my version of a unique cover of a great piece of pop music.

In this image you will see that I have placed the number 2 and 4, along with the letter U on this artwork. It is amazing how hard it is to find smaller size letters at the three craft stores I visited. They are a little large, so to tone down their size I blended them into the background. Truthfully, I did not think originally of adding any extra lettering, until I read that great blog tribute to Prince by Shawn S, and saw his use of the number 2 instead of the word two, and so on throughout his blog.  Of course,  that is his tribute to the titles of some great Prince songs such as I would Die 4 U,  The question of U, Take me with U, U got the Look, 2morrow, Nothing compares 2 U, Joint 2 Joint, 2 nigs united 4 west Compton,  and Love 2 the 9’s, for examples.

The next image, in a few days from now, will be the final image of this enjoyable painting.

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

S_V_H Purple Rain image3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

purpleRain_3

An Artist’s music can live forever, but they don’t, and if  touched by them, maybe this tweet says it best:
Thinking about how we mourn artists we’ve never met. We don’t cry because we knew them, we cry because they helped us know ourselves.     — Juliette (@ElusiveJ)

Here is a beautiful tribute 2 Prince Rogers Nelson, by a co-worker and extreme fan,  Shawn S.

I was and not I am even more focused on doing my best to make Purple Rain the painting a fine example of contemporary musical art. For What it’s Worth.

With this image you are seeing the music flow in place. Working with wood, and then attaching it to the canvas is a learn as you go experiment.  For example,  after gluing the music on to this canvas,  I had to figure out how to carefully remove dried glued wood from fragile canvas.

In this work two of my I beams dropped out-of-place, and needed to be removed, and re-positioned. It was not until I applied heat from a hair dryer to these misguided sticks,  that the damage to the painting dropped to almost nothing.  I was lucky that the move, and the repairs worked, and the painting is back to original condition. All of these mistakes are well deserved, and paid in full by a self-taught artist that is pushing Musical painting to extremes.

I am aware that when I start each of these artworks, that when finished they all fall a little short, have minor flaws, or don’t quite meet my expectations, and yet that works for me.  With each of these painting I start out with high expectations, and then slowly the artwork takes on almost human characteristics. May be a little of me moves into them.  Anyway, when completed they become,  a lot more real then perfect. Much more alive than, lets say, any Digital artwork. It is that human touch,  that ends up in them, that makes each of these artworks a part of me, or what connects us.  Each is an example that tells this artist that the best is yet to come.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

S_V_H Purple Rain image2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

purpleRain_2This is a short update.  This second image of Purple Rain, for now,  shows the background finished.  I call this artwork  Purple Rain, but so far violet has been the dominate color.  The plan is to save the many shades of purple for the music, and other add-nos. In this second image I  have striped out some of the violet with colors I found in Prince’s clothing in a small number of his video interviews, appearances, and performances.

While looking for a mix of colors that make up Prince’s image I saw,  and learned more than I usually do, about the artist and his music. This was intimidating, for Prince certainly is a well-respected song writer and musician.  In comparison I am just a guy painting music artworks, only starting to build a career.  That kind of thinking I had to put aside for it was too restrictive.  This painting is not a tribute to Prince.  Obviously Prince is a fabulous  artist, but if I am to succeed at being a painter of musical artworks,  Purple Rain, as an artwork, has to stand alone, as my cover of a great pop rock song.

Scott Von Holzen