Willie Nelson

Portraits of the American Country Singer and Guitarist

I will have to make a confession here, something I am really not proud of: I knew nothing about Willie Nelson until very recently. And when I say nothing, I mean that I didn’t even know about his existence!

In my defence I will state that my musical culture is 95% the responsibility of my partner, the English rock musician Kev Moore. And him being a passionate rocker, country music is not exactly his thing: wouldn’t look cool anyway if he liked it! And this is how it came to be that Willie Nelson was never presented to me. How then did I come to meet him? Well, in the most unexpected way: I was watching an episode of the USA TV show “Monk” the other day, the episode called “Mr Monk and The Red-Headed Stranger “. There, Monk’s favourite singer, Willie Nelson, playing himself, was wrongly suspected of murdering his tour manager, and of course Monk stepped in to clear his name. To thank him, at the end of the episode, Willie sang a song at the graveside of Mr Monk’s late wife. A very touching scene! Anyway I loved that guy, the way he looked, acted, and more than anything: the way he sang and played guitar: a perfect model for my music art.

I browsed around a little bit in Youtube to see him performing and enjoyed immensely what I saw. I was especially touched by a performance he did with Keith Richards, from the Rolling Stones, Keith playing the acoustic guitar and singing too. The proof, Mr Moore, that liking Willie Nelson is not uncool at all, not even for a rocker!

As I had finished the above artwork, I thought that it would also make a nice portrait of Willie Nelson alone. So I cut Keith Richards away , and did some work in Photoshop, playing around with the colours. This is how Willie suddenly got a blue skin: suits him well I would say!

The paintings of Willie Nelson presented in this gallery, and many more musician portraits, are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards, in my

FAA Gallery

The Giclee prints from the above mentioned Online shop are manufactured in the USA and sent directly to the client from there. For personal or financial reasons it might not be appropriate for everybody to order their prints in the USA. Also, you might prefer to purchase my Giclee prints hand-signed. If so, you can alternatively order directly from me. Simply contact me indicating which painting you are interested in and in which size. Go to

Goodaboom Boutique

to see a guideline of pricing for different dimensions.

 

 

A New Fantascape: Coup de Foudre

Today I eventually painted a new Fantascape, from this series where trees take human form and start to interact with each other in rather dramatic ways. If you want to know more about the story of the Fantascapes, please go to the Fantascapes Gallery, it is explained there.

But this special Fantascape today has another story. Some months ago I was contacted by Trey Knight, who wrote

“Hello Miki,

I wanted to reach out to you. I recently came across your roller skating paintings and it struct me they are very familiar. Do you know which team you painted? The painting of the one arm trick/flipping the women looks like the final trick in our freedance competition. It was a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers inspired piece dressed in black tux tailcoat and she was in peach crystals and ostrich feathers.

The yellow looks familiar as well because we had a lemon yellow compulsory tux/dress one year as well.

My name is Trey… My partner Kyoko Harada were the world dance champions in roller skating in 1995.

I could be mistaken but they do seem very familiar.

All the best and love all your paintings!!

love life
Trey Knight”

And indeed, it was him and his partner whom I painted on the two roller skating paintings. The painting below is one of them.

I was extremely pleased to meet him, and we had a very pleasant email exchange. At some point he sent me some photos and links to videos presenting his actual work. The best would be to go and have a look by yourself at Stilt World. He said, it might inspire me to some new painting.

And in fact, when I looked at his people on stilts, and especially his Amphibians, it strongly reminded me of my Tree People. And since then I wanted to make some new Fantascape work based on the Amphibians. So, this is the first one. I called it “Coup de Foudre”, as I couldn’t find any appropriate English translation. It French it means that you are struck by a lightning bolt of love. I think the closest thing in English is “love at first sight”, but really it does not convey the supernatural power of the Coup de Foudre. Don’t English people fall in love that way? I do!

The above paintings are currently available as Giclee prints in many dimensions, on paper and canvas, as well as greeting cards. Just click on the paintings above to access our shops online.

The Giclee prints from the above mentioned Online shop are manufactered in the USA and sent directly to the client from there. For personal or financial reasons it might not be appropriate for everybody to order their prints in the USA. Also, you might prefer to purchase my Giclee prints hand-signed. If so, you can alternatively order directly from me. Simply contact me indicating in which size. Go to Goodaboom Boutique to see a guideline of pricing for different dimensions.

We also sell A3 posters (297mm x 420mm) as high quality digital prints on a Heavyweight White 350gsm paper, each packed in cello with card stiffener.

Poster Price: 50 euros.

They are a great alternative to the Giclee prints, to a more affordable price.

(the price does not include packing&shipping)

The Fantascapes: Alternate Treeality

Fantascape “Celebration of Life” – by Miki

I have regularly been asked to make more of my Fantascapes artworks available as prints, but in the last few weeks the interest has become so great that it has seen me forced to take some steps in this direction. I am such a Diva, you know, I need to be begged…  But it is not only the Diva factor in play. The process of redoing the Fantascapes is complicated and the success is not always guaranteed. The Fantascapes were the result of some spontaneous experiments mixing classical and digital art, but initially I had not the intention to sell them and worked on very small files, which is why they were not available at the outset.

But well, I cannot resist the demand any more now, and I have decided to try to redo some, in a format and size that make them available as prints.

But first, let me go back to the story of the Fantascapes.

I have a wonderful sister-in-law called Isabelle, She is herself a painter, she lives in Paris and adores to come to Spain to paint our mountains and trees here. We spent many of her holidays in the Spanish fields together, painting among the Olive and almond trees in front of these weird Spanish mountains which seem to stand on old elephant legs…

Last time we painted together it was  in January 2008, on the Costa Blanca, The almond trees were just blossoming, a real feast for the eyes! Day after day we went to the same place at the entrance of a charming village called “Altea La Vieja”, installed our tables and paints and brushes and pads, and started painting trees and mountains. Now, those who know me, know that I can paint trees and mountains with deep pleasure for a while, but not again and again and again! In this point Isabelle and me are totally different characters, she can paint the same subject day after day, and with increasing pleasure and dedication.. It always amazes me, and I often wondered  what that says about our souls… I guess what it says about me is that I am a restless character! And perhaps that Isabelle needs roots?

Now Isabelle had arrived specifically from Paris to paint the blossoming almond trees, and I couldn’t let her down. I had to find a way to curb my restlessness. One evening I spoke with an artist friend in the USA about that problem, and she advised me to try to see it differently and make something else out of the scenery. Next morning as I sat in front of the trees, I searched for an alternative reality switch in my brain… and I found it! Suddenly the trees started to look different, on the way to humanisation…

Yes, suddenly the trees started to look like people… most of the time though like people in despair, or at least in a dramatic situation…

and I was so confused and also excited by all these weird people inhabiting the fields that I even forgot to paint their blossoms! I guess they would look less dramatic without them!

Anyway, these days were the start of an immense artistic adventure. For a while my brain was totally switched, I couldn’t look at a tree in nature without seeing people, and soon even all other nature elements started to look human, the rocks, the flowers… well, I started at some point that series called “The Fantascapes”, technical variations of the initial watercolour and pastel sketches of people-trees which was the start of many new series, which, I must say, brought me a lot of success and good money, not to be sniffed at! I often think how that adventure began, through boredom in fact, and I am so glad that my restless character, always in search of “the new”, does not allow me to stop too long… in fact, I was never one to take roots somewhere, this might be the deeper reason!

So here I am 4 years later, ready to go into that “Alternate Treeality” again.. Last week I already started to rework the Fantascapes. Some will be a kind of remake of the old ones, some others will be rather new.

Fantascape “Expulsion” – by Miki

Also, inspired by the price that the painting “The Scream” has reached lately, I have done a modern version of it. Well, to be honest, it was not really my intention, that tree suddenly appeared on the painting screaming like hell! But let’s see now if I can get 100 million  for it  before I die!

Fantascape “The Scream 02″ – by Miki

If you are interested in following me through this new Treeality, just check from time to time my FAA Fantascapes FAA Gallery

“Celebration of Life” and the new Fantascapes “Expulsion” and “The Scream” – and some others too – are already available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

Sports Art Video

I’ll make a short interlude now between all my Crete and Cyprus travel paintings and stories to present to you my new video. It is a a selection of my sport artworks in a variety of techniques depicting a huge range of different sports such as cycling, golf, horse racing, motorbike racing, skiing, snowboarding, surfing, boxing, skating, ski jumping, etc.

Kev Moore has created a great piece of music called “Higher, Faster, Harder, Stronger,  “ and put all the stuff together in the form of the following video. The result is great, have a look!

And don’t forget: each of the artworks presented there is available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the image below to access my FAA Sport Paintings Gallery

FAA Sports Art Gallery – by Miki

Joe Bonamassa in Spain

Joe Bonamassa 01 - by Miki

Well, I am cheating  a little bit here… this artwork does not actually represent Joe Bonamassa  in Spain. But it does not matter, it is Joe with his guitar and all the divine electric sparkles he is filling space and time and fans with!

It is not  a total bluff though. We have just come back from a Joe Bonamassa gig in Murcia, Spain. As I discovered that he would be coming so close to us -we live 150 kilometres further south- I could not believe it: these stars normally honour Madrid, Barcelona and sometimes Bilbao with their presence, and that’s about it. Well, without wasting one second more I bought our tickets! The first time we had seen him was in July 2011, but that time we had to fly and drive thousand of kilometres for this pleasure. More precisely: it was in Loket, in the Czech Republic, at a concert by his supergroup Black Country Communion. In Loket I had suffered like hell, the concert being outside under non-stop rain. But here in Murcia we were sitting comfortably in a nice auditorium, and I could totally focus on the gig. One might think, that sitting in an armchair is not very rockmantic, but I don’t care, when I am listening to Joe, I simply want to enjoy it to the max. Well, I was not disappointed, the gig was a super feast for the ears and the eyes:

fab people, fab music, fab lights!

And I will certainly try to make some new painting of Joe, in Spain this time. The light patterns and colours at the show were artistically very inspiring to me.

I was especially happy – and to be honest, surprised  – to see Joe smiling quite often, and even making fun. Everybody there laughed at his joke about El Cortes Ingles, this Spanish department store chain. He had entered one of them on the morning of the gig, and was amazed about the size and the fact that you can buy there “a suit as well as a dog”!

I was also happy to see that the Spanish audience, probably about 90% of the total punters- really enjoyed the show. I didn’t appreciate so much the screaming of some of them  in the middle of a Joe solo, stuff like

“Guapo!”

or

“Ole”

 but one should not forget that these people come from a different culture, where these words and behaviour simply mean a deep mark of admiration. And well, even if bullfight is not very popular any more, the “ole” will probably stay a long time in the Spanish vocabulary!

Oh yes, a last funny detail. Perhaps you know it, I am not a very tall person.. well, I am not that tiny either: a whole 159 cm! At least in the morning… unfortunately, I am starting being in that age when one’s own size diminishes through out the day… this reminds me that when we were in Loket, we met Joe Bonamassa by accident in the town, and we had a photo taken with him. But when I saw it later at home, I forbade Kevin to publish it anywhere: I looked so small next to these 2 giants, like a dwarf really! Kevin had to photoshop me away…

Anyway, at the gig, I was a little bit worried that somebody would sit in front of me and I could not make the photos I wanted to. And by chance, until 10 minutes before the gig began, the seats in front of us remained empty although the room was gradually filling up. I could not believe my luck. But then suddenly, they arrived. A whole family. Mom, Dad and their 2 offspring,  2 very young children, twins probably, around 4 years old, spreading themselves in these sits in front of us. I ended up having in front of me probably the smallest gig attender in the world! He was of course, with his sister, the only children in the whole audience… isn’t it incredibly lucky? Normally, on such occasions, exactly the contrary happens: I always get in front of me the biggest person in the world! I was by the way wondering why the parents brought their children to the gig… well, obviously, the father was a musician, and he probably  wanted to make a Joe Bonamassa out of his son, using all possible tricks to motivate him: like for example using his son’s arm as a guitar neck and playing on it all the time. I am not so sure, but I had the feeling that the boy was not very responsive to music… for the first half of the gig he tried to impede everybody around to listen to the music, and slept the other half… a long way to go! Funny, yesterday at the swimming pool, Kevin randomly met a guy who told him about a genius 17 year-old musician playing in Los Gringos, a local band here. He said that he was like Joe Bonamassa. Why is it so hard to believe?  Well, the world is not as full of wonder kids as parents and friends want to believe 

And also, it takes much more than some kind of talent to be like Joe Bonamassa!

Joe Bonamassa 02 - by Miki

I was very happy to meet again The Pianist, the one I had seen on the DVD of the Royal Albert Hall in London, when I had seen Joe for the first time in my life. That pianist who had inspired me to some paintings. In Murcia I missed his little Buddha though…

The Pianist 02 - by Miki

Anyway, if you have a chance, go and see Joe, you won’t regret it. You can check here his tour dates

A big thanks from us to Joe for coming to us, and also to his manager Roy Wiseman for having organised the event in Murcia.

These artworks are available directly online as Giclee print in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widget below to access my FAA Gallery

And if you are interested in seeing more of my music art, please click on the image below

Music Paintings Gallery - by Miki

The Tour de France 01

Tour de France 01 – by Miki

In homage to the Tour de France I started a new series of cycling paintings. As often in the last years, they will be done in a mixed technique including classical art (watercolour, pastel, ink) and digital art. The digital part being to increase the vibrancy of the colours and sometimes to create special effects of movement which I find especially adequate in sports art.

Le Tour de France 02 – by Miki

But these paintings won’t all be exactly in the same style, I want to try different stuff, different ways of abstractions and drawings.

In the painting below for example I tried to minimalise the drawing. Juts some principal lines, and then loads of bold colours as a contrast to the thick black lines.

Le Tour de France 03 – by Miki

The last one is an impression of the third stage of the race yesterday. In the TV coverage they were often showing that church and town from the air. That gave me the idea of that composition. Not quite easy to realise, but great fun! And I like the result, makes me want to do some more in that style!

Le Tour de France 04 – by Miki

And if you like them too, you can purchase a print (on paper or canvas) in many different sizes, or a greeting card, in my online gallery. Just click on the widget below

The Pianist

The Pianist - by Miki

I saw him in a  show from Joe Bonamassa in the Royal Albert Hall in London… I was fascinated by his whole appearance and movement, also by the cute little Buddha sitting 0n the piano next to him. Visually So fascinated that , I must confess, I hardly paid attention to his play! But this bunch of guys were so amazing that I have no doubt the Pianist did a great job!

Anyway, I think I will make a whole series of artworks about my Pianist, Joe Bonamassa and the others guys too.. it was a delightful show, as well for the ears as for the eyes, and I do want to render a big homage to it.. as far as my artistic skills allow it!

So here is my first painting from the Pianist, as often in my music works, a mix technique between classical  and digital work. The others will be gradually posted in my portraits blog as soon as they are finished.

This painting is available  as Giclee print, in different sizes and different formats, in my FAA Gallery:

Another tango with me… but not the last!

Tangoscape 5 - by Miki

Well, still working on my Tangoscapes series…

in search of movement and colour and passion and dramatic…

By the way, if you want to exhibit your music/dance art

in my new site “Painting The Music”,

contact me please.

And if anybody here wants to buy a print of my Tangoscape (or others), it is available in different sizes and on different supports (papers, canvas), in my FAA Gallery here:

Tango Time

Motivated by my brand new website

“Painting The Music”

dedicated to music and dance artworks, I have started a new series “The Tangoscapes”. I was often asked to make some tango art works, but I always refused. Somehow I am not so keen of the dance itself, it seems too sophisticated to me. Perhaps too sexual too. Or is it a modern evolution? I have noticed that they do it with flamenco too, flamenco has million of aficionados, many women all around the world learn it, more or less professionally. But for my taste they add too much sexuality to the dance itself, and I don’t believe that it was originally meant as such. Concerning tango, I don’t know enough about it, I can’t judge.

Anyway until now tango was not inspiring me.

Because of my new website, I had a thought. Thinking I might try to paint it in another way as one normally does. Less sexual, putting weight in the atmosphere. Or  adding a background story, kind of. Of course , knowing myself very few about tango, I might totally miss the point! But to be honest,  it dies not matter to me, as long as I like the result, and have fun doing it!

Tangoscape 02 - by Miki

(inspired by the man character, whom I saw in a video)

By the way, if you want to exhibit your music/dance art

in the new site,

contact me please.

f anybody here wants to buy a print of my Tangoscape (or others), it is available in different sizes and on different supports (papers, canvas), in my FAA Gallery here:

Flamenco in Space

Flamencoscpae 16 - by Miki

My last flamenco creation, in a mixed technique of pastel and digital art

As Kev Moore saw it he said:

“This would have been a great cover for the album by the Flamenco rock Group Carmen, Fandangos in Space…”

Ok, I will go for it. Just need the musician to make the album now…but I would like some kind music like Steve Stevens in his album “Flamenco a Go Go” to go with it, less traditional than the usual flamenco, more modern and rocky, with some electric guitar on it.

Any musician out there interested in making a new flamenco album with this artwork as a cover? 

In the meanwhile, f anybody here wants to buy a print of my Flamencoscape, it is available in different sizes and on different supports (papers, canvas), in my FAA Gallery here:

And if you like Steve Stevens, he is in my FAA Gallery too,