In doing
this piece of Dion I wanted to create a stance that I've
observed during a warm up. When Dion went out on the ice without
the chinstrap done up. This pose or stance is different then any
other one I have done and I guess that's why I'm so intrigued in
it.
I recall painting
the visor. I was thinking that after spending all that time
working on Dion's face and helmet I was going to be painting
over it. Not totally but in parts. It was thought of painting
over something that I just spent hours creating. The part that I
need to paint was the reflection of the house lights and the
glare of the ice surface. The ice surface being reflected
on the bottom right hand side. In that part I wanted to show the
Flaming " C" at center ice.
I can honestly say
I had my doubts about getting the right mixer of red for the
Vintage Jersey. I went into a store with my paint palette and
proceeded to mix a color to match. I always seem to get a lot of
stares and people asking what I was doing too... The fire/red or
orange /red gives off a hue of a reflective violet. Now this is
mainly the material giving this reflection, but I still see it
in the color. It drives me crazy because I know what the color
should be but I keep seeing this violet hue.... I did mange to
get the red as close as I possibly could and added some of the
violet color as well. The characters in the crowd weren't
as detailed as my previous works but they are there. I started
out with quite a few of these characters. As I progressed with
the piece I had only a handful left. I finished the painting by
not getting into or not having so much detail on the bottom
part.
The over all
feeling for this painting is loose. The only part that I wanted
to stand out was the upper part mainly the face area. I really
wanted to be loose with my strokes and in the way I delivered
the colors. I want to show an easy flow gestured feeling almost
an expressionism touch if you will. In whole I want to have a
painting that has realism to expressionism.
Through out this
painting process I had the pleasure of using some equipment and
a certain photo as references. The photo was taken by none other
then Gerry Thomas/NHLI via Getty Images / Calgary Flames
photographer..
This painting
was created for the purpose of the STARS & SPURS gala on January
23rd, 2010 in Calgary.
18" x 24" mixed
media painting of Dion Phaneuf...
Joe Versikaitis -
Artist
