Moore and Moore…

Gary Moore - by Miki

Just some weeks ago, on February the 6th 2011, the famous Irish blues rock guitarist and singer Gary Moore died of a suspected heart attack in his hotel room while on holiday in Estepona, Spain. Only some hundred kilometres down the coast from us. We were both very shocked and spent the next few days listening to his music and getting the blues…

The day after he passed away, I made a portrait of Gary Moore, not meant to be a very realistic one, just a basic but heart-felt impression of him. A portrait which, I think, says it all about his total dedication to music.

This month, our beloved local magazine. “The Sentinella” (with the cute slogan “The little mag which fits in your bag”) published an article written by Kev Moore in honour of Gary Moore and illustrated by my painting.

This is only a screen shot of the on-line edition, but if you want to see and read the article in its context, just go there please:

The Semtinella – Mojacar edition online

to page 14. You can also take time to browse, there is loads of interesting stuff in that little mag!

The day after I published the painting in my blog about my portraits artwork, I was contacted by a woman from the USA, writing me following words:

“…My father raised me on the greats; jeff beck, gary moore, kim simmons. When he told me of his passing I could hear the crack in his voice. His birthday is February 13 and I would really love to purchase a print for him. Please let me know as soon as possible how much I can buy one for and where to get it! I would love to contact you directly so that I can get quicker shipping and get it to him soon!! He would love this to complete his extensive collection and to honor a great! Bravo!…”

She purchased the print for her father through my Fine Art America gallery, the very first one I sold. I sent them a certificate verifying

that it was the first print, and some days ago I received the following wonderful photo of her Dad with the print and the certificate on the wall. A very touching moment for me!

Keith Coleman. - Oregon, USA

My special thanks go here to Veronica, for choosing my painting as a birthday gift for her Dad, and to Angela, her Mom, for sending me the birthday photos. And also to her Dad, Keith for having such a great  taste in music ! 

Back in the USA…

Street Musician in Memphis - by Miki

Well, not really, just in paintings. Motivated by the pleasure of feeding my new website “Painting the Music” with new artwork, I am actually working on some music paintings from the USA, New Orleans the last days, and Memphis today.

We saw that guy in Beale Street in Memphis, in January thus year. It was just a  gorgeous scene, as you can imagine.. and freezing cold! God, when I see this that guy blowing his trumpet, I get so melancholic, missing these music places so much… where we live there is nothing like that, no street, no bar, where one can go and listen to good life music.. or rarely… I wished we had such a Beale Street in Turre.. yes, me, I wish the blues under the sun all the year!

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

And don’t forget, Kev moore’s CD “Blue Odyssey”, 18 track CD over 75 minutes running time, celebrating Kev’s trip around the Music Heartland of America in the early part of 2010.

I made the cover design.

To purchase in Miki’s Mart

Guitar Heroe Angus Young

Angus Young - by Miki

I have just started a new series of my Rock Musicians, in that tehcnique involving classical and digital art.

The digital part being to give the painting some more “electricity”.

Wikipedia:

“Angus McKinnon Young (born 31 March 1955) is a Scottish-born Australian musician, and the lead guitarist, songwriter, and co-founder of the rock and roll band AC/DC. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame along with other members of AC/DC in 2003 and is known for his energetic performances, schoolboy-uniform stage outfits and the duck walk…”

Big Jerry in Memphis

Big Jerry in Beale Street, Memphis…

He really incorporated the kind of musicians I was expecting to see there.. strange enough, he was also one of the rare ones! I mean that I was expecting to see a lot of black musicians while we were travelling through the Southern States, and these were in fact the ones whom I really wanted to listen to, to see and to paint.. and I don;t know hot that happent, but we hardly saw one! For some obscure reason we always landed by gigs where most of the musicians were white.

A bis exception being of course Pinetop Perkins in Austin, but this is another story… for another time and another painting perhaps!

Mardi-Gras in New Orleans

A new painting in the series “The Music of New Orleans”… like my jazz paintings, certainly not in my usual wild free style, but this work is based on photos I took there, and I can’t work the same way from photos as from sketches done live on the spot. But it does not matter,  the result being one more painting style in my eclectic body of work, and one reason more for the critics to say that my art is all over the place…   I frankly don’t care, I am free, I have my own  gallery, I have no boss of any kind (except myself…  surely the most demanding boss in the world!), so I can really paint the way I want. And this eclectic way as they say certainly reflects my own character at best, so it is really me painting the whole stuff, and not me in search of myself. And as my brother answered to some people criticizing his new blog  ( “Je vous ecris de Tahiti”):

“… Ceux qui prétendent le contraire, je les emmerde.”

For this piece I have connected different elements which caught my eye in New Orleans on the Sunday 7th of February 2010. We were at our first parade in Canal Street, and I was of course fascinated by that colourful dream world. I am sure it will inspire me to some more work soon. I saw then the silver guy with the guitar in the French quarter after the parade, with a lot of folk around here. By the way I saw him again later on in the bar where we watched the Saints winning the Super Bowl, he was quite excited… hi YOU, if you happen to see this post and recognise yourself!

I have no idea if the New Orleans natives will like this kind of art featuring their town and their festivities. From what I could see there, their own art is very different -more caricature-based I would say- although we certainly have in common  the explosion of colours… how could we not!!! Somebody commented on one of my jazz paintings saying that much of the art there is tourist oriented. Even if it is, I guess it does not mean automatically that it is bad. If most of the art is like that, it means that the tourists like it, that they find in it what they felt being there, which is surely a very positive point. But anyway, I paint myself the way it comes to me, I have no intention of any kind when I start. I remember a painter telling me that my art is commercial, the reason being that we were regularly exhibiting together and I sold much more than he did. If this is the definition of “commercial”, then I am glad that my art is commercial! But I think it was his way of comforting himself…

Bobby Kimball – Fantatoto 01

Yesterday, early evening, Mister Kev Moore took possession of my computer to look at a Toto DVD… not that he hasn’t got his own computer, as you can see on the photo of our office, but well, mine has a bigger screen. And no, this is not male discrimination. I simply need a bigger screen than him for my work! And anyway, we’ve  got 2 TVs in the house, and God knows how many DVDs players, so in fact, he could have looked at Toto somewhere else… but somehow, this lovely corner of our office in front of the palm tree has become a kind of beloved viewing spot… normally we watch Sport there at the weekends, the football games on the live streams, and me the golf tournaments. By the way, behind Kevin, you can see, at least partly, the sexy curves of the armchair from the new Lap-Dancing club I was speaking in my last post about Golf in Scotland…

It was the first time I saw Toto, Kevin had already introduced me to their music, especially when we are travelling in our motor home, we listen to them. I enjoyed watching the concert with him, but there is something in my character which impedes me to sit still in front of the screen and just enjoy. Some might think I am a workaholic, but I don’t believe so, I simply love working and creating and get easily inspired by anything. Anyway, I found, once more, these musicians very attractive motifs, with all the colours and attitudes, and I started sketching. Today, based on some sketch, I made my first Fantatoto, a portrait of the lead singer Bobby Kimball, in this special technique which I used for the Fantascapes (mixed technique between digital and classical art).

I guess some others will follow, me being especially inspired by the bass player…and this time I don’t mean the one who stole my computer! 

By the way, for me as a French girl it is very difficult to imagine a band called “Toto” – In France Toto is a silly little boy, main character of many jokes, in the style:

Toto:”Mummy, I don’t like my grand-mother!”

Mother: “Shut up, and eat!”

Portrait of Michael Jackson 01

So, I have started with my Michael Jackson series.

Looking at this one, Kevin says:

“It could be anyone!”

Perhaps… but in fact this portrait belongs with another one. Ans when one sees the second one, no doubt, I think, who it is!

if you are interested, you can see the second one in my portraits blog

Steven Tyler 02 (Aerosmith)

Kevin told me that I should paint him, because he became quite newsworthy these days after having falling down  from the stage!

So I did it, and I don’t even know the guy (sorry, I am musically totally ignorant, although Kevin is doing his very best to keep me informed…    )

Anyway, this is a great face and a great attitude, and I really don’t care who he is and where he has fallen from, it was simply a deep pleasure to make his portrait. Well, in fact I made 2 portraits of him, the first one is to be found in my portrait blog here

Keith Richards

Some days ago I felt the need to go back to the world of portraits… this always happens to me after an intenive time of painting/sketching landscapes, which is right now the case with my travel sketches of Portugal and Spain.

This is a portarit of Keith Richards, you know, from the Rolling Stones…

how he looks like nowadays, a fascinating face to me.

This portrait is pure digital art, using my old Wacom tablet and the digital pen, of which I had forgotten the existence and in fact hardly used in the past. I can’t believe that I missed this tool all these years, as I enjoyed it so much! Now the tablet is definitely installed on my desk, and I will certainly use it more than once, for portraits or other kind of digital art. I must confess that I love digital art, one of the main reasons being  that… it is soooo clean!

Keith Richards 02 - by Miki

 

These paintings are available directly online as Giclee prints in many different dimensions, on paper or canvas, and also as greeting cards. Just click on the widgets below to access my FAA store

And more generally you can see all the stuff I paint by going to my gallery “Miki’s Enchanted World”

Sweet Mike

(by Miki)

Mike Koch-Lead Guitar and Vocals
Mike Koch joined BC Sweet in December 2006, replacing original member Dave Glover on Lead Guitar. Mike was born on 24th of June 1961 in Ellsinore (made famous as the place where Shakespeare’s Hamlet was roaming the castle) in Denmark. Mike’s driving guitar sound and fantastic stage presence made him the ideal choice to replace Dave and have already made him a firm favourite with BC Sweet fans.