In memory of the great John Lewis. (1940-2020)
Original ink and watercolor portrait painting on Strathmore 500 Series 4-ply Bristol illustration paper.
Signed by the artist. Unframed.
Wow! I was invited to spend the day in the recording studio drawing the creation of a jazz album. I will be going back to my studio to create the album cover art for the project. Included are few photos of my process drawings from the session. It was an amazing experience to spend time with these incredible musicians. I will share the final results at a later date.
My favourite commission so far! Took me a while this one but so pleased with the finished piece. Didn't want to let her go! Drawn in black and white line using fine liners.
"I really don't like to gripe,
But there's a monster in pink stripes,
And he's lifting our house up to the sky.
It's like what Mama always said,
That we would all reach such great heights,
But I suspect that's not quite what she meant."
In the Finnish mythology killing of a bear was followed by a great feast in honour of the bear (peijaiset), where a substantial part of the celebrations consisted of convincing the bear's spirit that it had died accidentally and hadn't been murdered. Afterwards, the bear's skull was hung high upon a pine tree so its spirit could re-enter the heavens. The bones of the bear were then buried under the pine. Reference for this work is my old drawing of karhunkallopetäjä/bearskullpine in the Riisitunturi. Also practice sketch of bear skull and at last photo i took of pine.
Depicting the young peoples lack of real identity coming from a lack of any real sub culture except looking good on a social platform and trying to become somebody on t.v or on a billboard. This is only led to a lack of respect for each other and the notion that what you own or buy makes you more special than the next person, this in turn leads to robbing each other in chase of a fancy phone that will be out of fashion in 1 year. Human conciousness at this point in time had been completely eroded.
