Hi everyone, thank you for all the positive words of encouragement
Geodeticman and Senior member, Yes I picked that photo as a reference for this derivative painting because like me, it's the painter passing through album, and I also picked it because of his facial expression. This is of course why i am not likely going to sell the original painting, and a little hesitant to make prints without first checking with the photographer and copyrights. I'm sure there won't be any issues, after all, it would be kinda hard for me to personally get a photo of Gord myself, and I'm hoping it is viewed as a good-hearted tribute to him
But definitely if all goes well i will contact the people you suggest. It would be so great to have this painting bring some warmth to people. I look at it on the wall here in my studio and I think wow, I couldn't have created that...did I?
As far as the 12 string guitar, I realize he usually plays a 12 but if you only knew the cursing and swearing comin' outta me as I was running a brush along a ruler trying to paint guitar strings, i thought, ok rather than wreck it...I'm going to just leave it a 6 string!
And thank you Senior Member for visiting my website! I did actually take a still life photo of my very own morning cup of coffee (I left out the Tim Horton's Logo though...lol) and that painting is acrylic on stretched canvas. There's two other paintings in that set, the tea pot and cookie jar, and they are both painted in oils.
The paper that i used for Dr. Maya Angelou and Gordon Lightfoot is a treated, acid-free paper, it's fairly thick, but not stiff and it really takes a beating from the working of brushes and cloths without any tears or scuffing. I actually had I large stack of it given to me from StoreImage, and so I am not sure of any other details other than that. When it comes to many areas in the Maya portrait and the sky in Gord's painting I used a soft cloth with a little linseed oil and rubbed in the gradients, blending it together which creates an "airbrushed" look. I think I will post a close up of Gord's face and you will see some brush strokes in there. Also, i used a very limited palette of colours, lemon yellow, yellow ochre, cadmium red light, cadmium red dark, Phthalo blue, ultramarine blue, and titanium white...and a few accent colours such as carbon black, cadmium orange and burnt umber.
It's sad i had just discovered Ken Danby's work just recently, God rest his soul, and his portrait of Gord is stunning and very ethereal...makes Gord look like an angel. Glad you posted that image.
Cheers, Vanessa
