What a fantastic weekend! This past friday I was fortunate enough to attend a Tony Bennett concert in a small intimate venue. It only got better when I was backstage after the show to meet the Legend himself and he was kind enough to sign my portrait of him. Mr Bennett was kind, humble and very complimentary about my work and mentioned that he had seen more of my work and was very impressed... Anthony Dominick Benedetto (born August 3, 1926), better known as Tony Bennett, is an Italian-American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz. Bennett is also a serious and accomplished painter,
having created works—under the name Anthony Benedetto—that are on
permanent public display in several institutions. He is the founder of
the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts in New York City.
The evening was a very special one for me and something I will never forget! Many thanks to Tony for his kindness... a True Class Act!
Wow! It has been waaay too long since my last post... things have been a little crazy and I have been lazy about keeping up my end of the bargain here... My apologies..
Anyway... this is awesome.. Jay Leno a late night icon!
I was lucky enough to meet Jay on one of his fantastic stand up tours. This guy really is on his game.. his stand up had me laughing for the whole show. Clever, witty, current and you can tell he has been in the business for a while... true pro!
To meet him was a real treat. I was really blown away over what a kind, and gracious guy he is.. He interviews most of the biggest names on earth and treats everyone as if they are just as famous... Real Class act!
Jay was kind enough to sign the work. He really liked the painting, which to me, as always, is the ultimate compliment and endorsement of my work!
If you ever get a chance to see Jay live... Don't miss out!!
Queen galvanised the stadium with some of their greatest hits, in which lead singer Freddie Mercury at times led the entire crowd of 72,000 in thundering unison refrains. In their 20 minute set the band opened with "Bohemian Rhapsody" and closed with "We Are the Champions".They extensively rehearsed their performance at London's Shaw Theatre. Prior to their taking the stage, Queen's sound engineer covertly switched out the limiters that had been installed on the venue's sound system so the performance would be louder than the others.
Queen's performance on that day has since been voted by more than 60
artists, journalists and music industry executives as the greatest live
performance in the history of rock music.
My next painting in the series of Live In Concert paintings is Freddie Mercury at Live Aid. Live Aid was a dual-venue concert held on 13 July 1985. The event was organized by Bob Geldof and Midge Ure to raise funds for relief of the ongoing Ethiopian famine. Billed as the "global jukebox", the event was held simultaneously at Wembley Stadium in London, England, United Kingdom (attended by 72,000 people) and John F. Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States (attended by about 100,000 people).On the same day, concerts inspired by the initiative happened in other countries, such as Australia and Germany.
It was one of the largest-scale satellite link-ups and television
broadcasts of all time: an estimated global audience of 1.9 billion,
across 150 nations, watched the live broadcast.
Stay tuned for the rest of the progress pics to follow.
After the basic image has been roughed in, I start to layer in colors to form the basic shape, highlights and shadows, slowly building up the image
As the image starts to come to life, I begin to add details and fill in
the background. I can see now that because the background is so dark,
the face looks a little washed out. I will in the next step add some
warmer layers around the neck, and chin area to give it more weight and
make it look more solid. Details like the ears, teeth and inside of the mouth will all be slowly addressed in the next sitting... Stay tuned!!
Almost done.. just got to finish the mic, ear and mouth details...
The Monterey International Pop Music Festival was a three-day concert event held June 16 to June 18, 1967 at the Monterey County Fairgrounds in Monterey, California. Monterey was the first widely promoted and heavily attended rock festival, attracting an estimated 55,000 total attendees with up to 90,000 people present at the event's peak at midnight on Sunday.
The festival is remembered for the first major American appearances by Jimi Hendrix, The Who and Ravi Shankar, the first large scale public performance of Janis Joplin, and the introduction of Otis Redding to a large, predominantly white audience.
I have made a decision to paint a little larger this year. This piece is 48" x 48" which I find is a really nice portrait size.. I like the square canvases lately.
The basic image is roughed in. This is where the proportions and tonal qualities are based. Once I am happy with the layout and look of the work, then I will start to build up layers and start creating the form.
As the image progresses, the details start to take life... with a painting of this scale, everything is exaggerated. I think that is what is so great about a large scale painting. Up close the brush work is loose. It's not until you stand back that you get the whole semi-photo realistic impression.
This piece is approx half to two thirds complete. Stay tuned for more updates and the finished result!
This past weekend I was very fortunate enough to attend the Paul McCartney show at BC Place in Vancouver. The whole experience was absolutely fantastic! I am a huge Beatles fan, and I like a lot of the Wings stuff too... the set list was a great mix of mostly Beatles tunes, and the Wings huge hits. 38 songs, 3 hours of non stop entertainment. Electrifying atmosphere! To be in a building with 40,000 people singing "Hey Jude" in perfect unison is something I will never forget and always feel fortunate to have been there at that moment...
The songs spanned decades of an amazing career. Early Beatles to The White Album. Wings to present day. The catalog is immense and there was a buzz towards the encores... of "What's next..?"
The show couldn't have kicked off any harder and energetic as it did with "Magical Mystery Tour" I thought to myself... "Wow, this is going to be awesome..." It was. Every second of it start to finish! Sir Paul may be 70+ but man, this guy left it all on stage, no breaks, no costume change, present for 3 hours rockin' and rollin with the crowd mesmerized at the sheer spectacle of genius.
I have had the good fortune to have seen many great bands and artists in my time.. this show was quite possibly the very best of the lot! An incredible journey into the soundtrack of my life... Thank you Paul McCartney for all the music and memories.
Just recently I was fortunate enough to meet a true Blues Legend, Mr Buddy Guy! Buddy was kind enough to sign my original artwork and compliment my work, which is a real honor...
Critically acclaimed, he is a pioneer of the Chicago blues sound and has served as an influence to some of the most notable musicians of his generation, including Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. In the 1960s Guy was a member of Muddy Waters' band and was a house guitarist at Chess Records. He can be heard on Howlin' Wolf's "Killing Floor" and Koko Taylor's "Wang Dang Doodle" as well as on his own Chess sides and the fine series of records he made with harmonica player Junior Wells.
Ranked 30th in Rolling Stone magazine's list of the "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time",
Guy is known for his showmanship on stage: playing his guitar with
drumsticks or strolling into the audience while playing solos. His song
"Stone Crazy" was ranked 78th in Rolling Stone's list of the 100 Greatest Guitar Songs of All Time.
A real treat for me was that on this tour, joining Buddy is a young future legend Jonny Lang. His show was fantastic! The last time I saw him play was as a young teen opening for the Rolling Stones many years ago!!
This recent project was a lot of fun! I was given the chance to paint and meet the one and only Mr Russell Brand... yes, old Rusty Rockets himself!
I am a fan, so this was an easy one.. of course I was nervous about showing him the work... but, he loved it! I was taken back by his kindness, lovely personality and funniness.
As I painted the work, I took photos documenting the progression.. I thought it might be interesting to some people so they can see how the work developed...
A really fun project highlighted by meeting and having Russell enjoy the work!!
