Rock & Roll Lifestyle

It's no big secret that the "Rock and Roll Lifestyle" is a "rough and tumble" one to say the least. It is absolutely messy and chaotic, and that's the feeling I am trying to convey with this piece in the splashes of colors layered on top of one another; and scratchy, rough textural areas as well.

It depicts a guy that really lives for rock & roll music. You see him here playing "air guitar" which so many fellas like to do, but this guy does it particularly well! So much so, in fact, that you can almost SEE the rhythm and sound here, and you can almost feel the beat of the music. There is a lot of movement throughout the piece and the red splashes of color especially seem to be floating "musical notes" emanating from his imaginary guitar playing.

The way I created this piece was I began with laying down the texture paste. Then I painted the background a light yellowy beige color, and proceeded to paint the man. I then layered on the colorful splashes surrounding him and glazed splotches of differing colors making sure to scratch and scrape for even rougher abstract textural effects. Then I rubbed on a rust colored (burnt sienna) glaze around the perimeter of the entire piece, that gives it an organic framed effect and finally I painted the sides in that same color.

I signed it on the back, and it's ready to hang.