Roi Painting

Part 1:

I've been working on this painting for my room off and on for some time now. I needed some artwork with brown tones to dress up my space a bit so I figured I might as well give it a go. I decided to do the painting using LeRoi Moore of the Dave Matthews Band as inspiration. He was one of the founding band members and played sax. He's always been my favorite band member but upon his passing in August of 2008 from complications stemming from an ATV accident, I found it more important that I document something to his memory. While I love the band there was something special I loved about him. I've never painted before now so its kind of an experiment in learning. I hope it goes well. So far so good....I'm a huge fan of "process" so here are the first images of the work up until now.

As you can see...my cat Ginger is quite nosey...she seems to end up in most photos...

I got the boards cut at Lowe's...just some scrap wood. Splinters were free.

Next came the gesso.

Ginger helping with the gesso. She likes chewing my brushes when they're drying.

First layers of paint. Trying to make the background the colors my room was supposed to be when I re-did it. That light brown is darker then the walls of my room so hopefully it'll help me not hate those walls so much. The dark brown is the color of an accent wall.

Close up b/c I love texture.

The next step was trying some gel transfers for the first time.

Here are the transfers on the board with the paper not washed off. The top image is a silhouette of Roi playing sax. The bottom image is the first group photo of the band after LeRoi died. Its just the remaining founding members and the vibe is somber. I like it.

This is the gel medium I used for the transfers. Basically you brush it on the toner side of the photocopy and then press it into the surface with a brayer. After its dry the acrylic holds the toner and you can wash the paper backing off to reveal the image. Keep in mind if you do this to reverse your image.

First I wet and rubbed off the paper on the band photo since it was smaller. Was happy with it though a bit on Dave's shirt came off b/c I rubbed too hard on a spot that wasn't totally dry. Doesn't bother me though, I enjoy the imperfect quality.

There's trouble popping her head in again.

The idea of this was to place the photo of Roi up high...not really in a heaven aspect (I'm not so much a believer in that) but in a overlooking presence that he's still there with the band, watching over them. I like the juxtaposition of the somber members missing him with Roi being above them...a bit of spirituality between friends and musicians that transcends life. He seemed to be a backbone of the band so I wanted that to be present. I think things exist in many art forms that only people who have the same craft can understand. I think some things that I do only other artists can understand etc.

The paper backing didn't wash off of Roi as well as the other photo. I think its b/c it came off a big plotter like a blue print machine while the smaller one came off my xerox machine at work.

I was going to keep this monochromatic but I kept having dreams of this green color. My room has hunter green in it, which will go away eventually but I still couldn't get away from a bright green. I went with it. Basically I did a brown wash with gel medium added to it to make it semi transparent over the center to give separation. Under that is pure black.

Then I used stencils to paint out his nickname "Grux". The new album "Big Whiskey and The GrooGrux King" was the last Roi was on. There is a track of just him playing in the studio that starts the album that is amazing. I tried to listen to that to get into that zone when working on this so I would know what to do next. For the stencil I just printed out tons of fonts then when I found one I dug, cut it out and taped it on. Touched it up a bit after but for the most part it worked. Its nice and bright.

Next I wanted to put a star up in the corner. I fought with the idea of using another color or staying with brown. I still haven't decided but I think I will use other colors but subdue them a bit to let the name stay prominent. I've also decided to add multiple stars...going from small to big out of the horn of the sax and lifting into the top corner of the painting.

Seeing how the stencils weren't  perfect I consulted my friend Dani. She was working on Christmas gifts for her family, using block printing techniques. I decided to give that a go. I mean why not? Already did tons of stuff I've never done before on this, whats one more? I purchased some linoleum block and a speedball carver and set to work. Forgot how long this takes to carve but here are those images. Since the block is so thin, I may just cut the stars out without excess. It will mean I wasted many hours carving the excess out however I'd rather not take the chance of the material hitting the board where it shouldn't.

This is straight CCS style. Mainlining caffeine and working on crafty things by light of the laptop.

Yes, I did cut myself but only once which is pretty good I think.

All carved up but thin. Next step it to cut them out and test it on paper before I give it a go on the painting itself.

Thats all for now. I will update more as I continue to work. Any suggestions are welcome. Art peeps...this means you! In particular I'm looking for a way to make the color of the stars (most likely yellow, red, blue and green) bright but toned back. My idea is to mix the paint with a considerable amount of matte medium but if you have any other ideas, let me know. Perhaps a layering effect? Maybe color on the bottom and some random stamps with just medium over it? What'ya think?

BTW, LeRoi's website can be found here: http://www.leroimoore.com/   It gives access to the fund they started in his name. It also has album tracks on it...the first of which you hear upon going to that page is the song I was referring to in my post.