New painting: "Maker of the Music"

“Maker of the Music”

Hello everyone. I know most of you were expecting my next post to be on track # 10 “Stay Away”, but something came up. I promise I will finish that one soon! 

This painting is called “Maker of the Music”. It is not based on a song this time, just merely inspired by Lee as a person & musician. It’s one ofthose impromptu paintings that end up being my favorite. 

On Friday I was at work and Mare had sent me the links to the Accoustic Nations interviews of Lee. Of course I had to watch them right away. On the segment where he was talking about learning to play the guitar, the camera ran across his guitar and something just made me screen-shot that image. I KNEW I had to paint it. The interview was fantastic! He was so happy and excited talking about his thought process and how he learned to play the guitar, how he writes his songs, etc. You can see these interviews here:http://www.guitarworld.com/acoustic-nation-video-our-exclusive-interview-lee-dewyze 

When Lee is excited about something, his entire face lights up and his smile is contagious. It is absolutely adorable! BUT ANYWAY, back to the painting.... 

Since I was at work, I just quick wrote down some key words for the image that was in my head and I went about my day. 

Now this is the amazing part when ideas hit you without you even see them coming. I laid in bed the other night tossing and turning because I was thinking about what I wanted this painting to look like. Finally at 2 am, I got up and snuck downstairs to sketch it out. I had this vision of old, weathered wood with a faded design in the background behind the image that I had in mind. I sketched it up, wrote some notes and went back to bed. I wish I would have looked at my phone because I woke up to see that around the same time I was up, Lee tweeted, “It’s late. And I’m writing a song”  How weird is that? Seriously, when it comes to my art inspired by his music... that happens A LOT” 

Naturally this made me want to get it onto canvas asap! I was worried how I’d get that wood look without making it look cheesy & fake.  I was so into this that we had people over for dinner... I had the painting on the Kitchen island painting layers AS I cooked dinner (master multi-tasker, right?) then after dinner, while my husband and his friend talked about bikes, of course... I worked on my layering to get that wood appearance. and ya know what? When I finished it, it looked EXACTLY like it did in my head. I can  not even begin to explain to you how excited and pleased I was.  

here is a close up of the wood effect I was able to accomplish: 

I started with a base color with a tiny comb over it, then added a crackle agent, then a top-lighter color and it just evolved from there. LOL, to quote Mark’s friend, “Holy Crap! That is amazing, and I got to see you start it!” 

Well, anyway, This is my latest painting. It kind of named it’s self: “Maker of the Music” because that is what Lee IS, it’s even his profile description on his Instagram ;-) 

Hope you enjoy!!!! 

I hope to have “Stay Away” finished shortly after Christmas! I’m not the best at painting people, so I am taking this one slow and need to wait until I have long stretches of free time to give it all my attention. 

Until then... I hope everyone has a wonderful Holiday!!!!!!!! 

-Jenn