I love the process – the journey – the creative planning that goes into a painting. 

The idea was blossoming for weeks. I reached for a sketchpad and let the idea come through. I didn’t hate it. I let it sit and I kept it in a corner of the studio where I would contemplate next steps. 

The idea of a head looking up, leaning back came from a Hazell Dean music video. This isn’t the first time Dean’s They Say It’s Gonna Rain has inspired art for me. From there Ramsey Lewis’ Sun Goddess album cover and Cher’s ‘88 picture disc filled in missing components. The face was lost in music, the cord of the headset reaching beyond the frame of the page. I spent time narrowing down my idea with a new sketch. I brought in elements from a painting I completed last year.

At the time I was listening to Bernard Badie’s, Wonder Woman ft. Jackie Haywood. This was very integral to how I proceeded. The power of music. As always, I was jamming and dancing while I painted, listening to a plethora of musical genres.

My partner “O” stepped in again as a model. It helped make the piece a little more accurate even as it became more abstract. In my down time I started fooling around with the O sketch and decided I liked it enough to create a new character. The cords of the headphones connect between the canvases and I began working on two paintings simultaneously.

Ta-da! “Artemis” & “Apollo”, my “New Gods of Music”, both 18”x22”, mixed media on canvas board are complete!