I ran my first (and only) marathon in Las Vegas. We celebrated Erin’s 30th Birthday in Sin City. Since 2011, I’ve painted in the land of neon seven times.
So, you can imagine the stoke factor, when Kevin Barry Fine Art commissioned me to paint The Sahara — two times!
https://www.facebook.com/borbay/videos/2002883323128138/?__xts__[0]=68.ARBe17XYOwRExeBiDOr_nLzI6UyPFrvI5pPGw045p3HZ2Bjv2M7KyEFgYjkBWIS_qCLdsmsy-i80a6W-OPV3ef31ij9KY31UwZ-u46I3akn3gBEhzdNAL6oAAjHerwrq92Fl8GYsJXqGHKWxs7LXD0A22P71RcPf4vZGD_3_FaM0zS15W2Zscw&__tn__=-R
You can check the entire double feature above, in a shade over sixty seconds. Huge thanks to the Ambershift for a sizzling custom soundtrack! Now let’s take a closer look at these bad boys…
You may have noticed straight away… these paintings feel like a throwback. Well, you are ? correct!
The inspiration for these two canvases (the vertical, 12″X18″; the horizontal, 20″X30″) was this collage painting, created on-location, in 2011. Fortunately, I took many source images of the Sahara… lesson learned, you never know what you’ll be painting in seven years, so take lots of photos. I digress.
We kicked things off by choosing the headlines… fortunately, my New York Post stash is still running strong. The Congo Room was a famous spot in the Sahara… the rest? Well, I’m sure you can draw your own conclusions.
Revisiting an old style is a real challenge… one I was stoked about. Fortunately, with the process posts, I’m able to break down the steps… it felt good to throw down a cadmium red outline.
Next, it was about populating the background with colors. The original painting lead the way, and I simply let the acrylic fly.
All that remained was the shadows, and boom! The 12″X18″ Sahara (revisited) painting was complete. I focused on retaining as much of the original newsprint as possible on the final surface, to create textural excitement. And now, on to the next one.
The larger painting marked a similar undertaking, but presented the challenge of an off-center composition.
The headlines… one of the Sahara towers was named Tangiers (also, famous from the movie Casino, as the fiction gambling house run by Sam Rothstein); House of Lords, Club Bingo — famous locales within the Sahara. I’ll tell you the rest after I get my money right.
Back in with that cadmium red flow. Doing two paintings of the same subject matter simultaneously was beautiful… and something I will now consider moving forward.
Getting colorful… very colorful.
And fin! By the way, I really dig how the paintings were un-stretched for scanning… so I shared both images (it’s rare to experience the side of a painting online).
Here’s a huge thank you to Kevin Barry Fine Art. John, Jen, you were an absolute pleasure to work with — here’s looking forward to our next collaboration.
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