You say it's your Birthday!

Stevland Hardaway Morris ...was born today in 1950. This rendering of Stevie Wonder is not hanging in my May Show. No, it's hanging in Barb's house. She purchased it back in December when I was in the Four Artists show at Green Tree Gallery. It was a 20% sale and I had posted all the work for sale on this blog prior the gallery's 30% commission. Barb is a big fan of Stevie Wonder and I'm so pleased this piece is hers. This rendering is a very early example of what I call a "photo-montage." A process where drawings and photographs are roughly assembled in Photoshop then printed on drawing paper. In some cases, much of the drawing and coloring occurs on this printed stock, in others, coloring embellishments are the only thing added. This piece is one that lands somewhere in between. The ink portrait/caricature was rendered at least a year before this color piece was finished. I'm guessing around 2003 or 04. My website back then featured monthly birthdays and all the images were composed in ink. Each month had a "color theme" and the ink images took on that background color (similar to the rendering of Courtney Love shown below). The dates and process for this piece were not documented as well as most of my work now, as I didn't have this blog back then (or at least didn't use it so). But my guess is this piece lands somewhere "in and abouts" Little Richard and Marilyn Monroe as they all use a similar process of existing "birthday month" images. Marilyn was my first to use a line under drawing printed from an image in Photoshop. Prior to her, I traced all line art images on a light table. Little Richard has the piano graphic added and Stevie pushed it further with the photos of the apples and the blue sky with clouds. This was the beginning for what has become my signature approach for most of my portraits.