Once Upon A Silverscreen (Audrey Hepburn) 40" x 48" Mixed media on panel

I am overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response to the Icon series.  Nothing new here.  It has all been done before.  Or Has It?  Whenever I was approached by the self-defeating "It's all been done before" by my students, I would simply respond with "Yes it has, but not in your unique style".  So I will continue to paint the Icon series, in my unique style, always with an eye toward fine art, and a presentation that distills the essence of the persona, illuminating strong qualities that might be overlooked in commercial, fan-club and popular imagery.  I let subtleties in mood created through colour and placement of motifs create a new picture of the individual.  In Who New?, Andy Warhol's hair is not the shock gold-silver colour expected, but a glamorous pink setting off an entirely different vibe.  In Taxi Driver, the entire composite of De Niro is rendered in black, Payne's Grey, and white.  A rather sober colour scheme for the serious actor for the ages.  The central concern for me is the painting.  It is, after all, just that.  The stressed wood panel suggests old-fashioned billboards of a bygone era.  The resulting nostalgic patina is appropriate in that we always seem to see these figures as "once upon a rose-coloured time".  They are always in the glorious past, even if they are still living.