Since the refocus for me involves art and music, it seems only right to combine the two. If you’ve been following the progress of the Ovation painting then you’ve probably guessed that this the main way I’m doing that. It’s fun. And there are a lot of interesting instruments out there, guitars in particular, that are works of art in their own right. Whether it is the design, the engineering, the craftsmanship, the finish, the inlay, or just they way they have aged. They are beautiful and I want to render them onto canvas or canvas board.
With that in mind, this last weekend I headed off down to South Carolina for a guitar show. I went specifically hoping see some interesting guitars and to take pictures. I know. I’ve had a few people express surprise that I didn’t purchase another one. What can I say, I wasn’t in the shopping mood. Ok, there was one that might have tempted me a little. Not enough though. I didn’t even ask to play it.
I did see some great stuff. Though, I was lamenting to a day job co-worker that I didn’t see much odd stuff. Then I looked through some of the pictures I took and realized, that wasn’t entirely true. While I saw a lot of Gibson, a lot of Gibson, and a lot of Fender, Gretsch, and C.F. Martin, I also saw some Silvertone, Harmony, Hagstrom, and even a Palir. I saw a Mosrite Bass and a solid body electric from Ovation. There were others as well, those just happen to stand out.
I was looking for a few things in the guitars I photographed. Aged and played. I wanted guitars that showed they had lived and they had been played. And preferably not relic-ed to look that way. That’s a cheat and disappointing for me. I want to see the life in the instrument. And there were some great examples there. Unusual. I wanted shapes that were different or configurations that were different, or even interesting colors. And also good examples of the particular instruments. I did see a few choice Telecasters and Stratocasters, and some lovely Gretsch guitars, even an acoustic Gretsch. That was cool.
So here are some of my favorites from this weekend.
As I noted, the idea is to be able to use some of these for reference to create new artwork from, thus the reason for wanting something different. There are quite a few that I think will be fun to get started on. And a few that I will get started on and regret it because of the detail. And yes, several of them are red.
I am bit excited to get started on a couple. So much so that I’m even thinking about preparing the canvas board to see if I can work out the issues I have with the two pieces I’m still working on. Of course if I do that, then I’ll have to start sketching it in and one thing will lead to another and I’ll get started on it and distracted from the Ovation painting that I’ve been working on so diligently lately, and the Gretsch that I will get back to once I get the Ovation done. Or maybe not. I think I can stay focused on the current pieces. I’m really interested to see them finished. And here’s an updated look at the Ovation painting.
The other reason to stay focused and finish these two pieces is that I’ve learned quite a bit doing them and I would like to be able to take all of that to the next fresh painting. That’s a topic for another post though.