The Reverend Gary Davis

The Reverend Gary Davis
22x30" Watercolor 300 lb. Arches cold press.

This is the first in a series of paintings I want to do of old blues musicians. The idea came from my discovering You-Tube videos, as I was generally astounded with what I found to be available with music. Artists such as Gary Davis are there to study and listen to without having to seek out specialized music collections or spend anything to purchase the music. Even though Gary Davis is rather famous, and his music is now readily available, I chose to start with him for a number of reasons. First - he was one of the world's greatest guitar players. He was unselfish and taught guitar to many young folks back in the day - the quintessential bluesman. His influence is unquestioned. Finally, along with Blind Boy Fuller and Brownie McGhee, he was considered to be a practitioner of what is known as the Piedmont style of blues and guitar playing - originating in the Carolinas and in south central Virginia.

I'm thinking that the first one in a series like this can take the longest to do. This one took me a good little while - not so much in the actual painting, but in the research (so to speak). My first thought was to do imagery deriving solely from on-line video captures. The real good old ones are over-contrasty, black and white and often out of sharp focus. So I found myself taking screen shots of hands and so on. I found myself researching the kind of guitar Gary Davis played (Gibson SJ-200) and down loaded many guitar reference shots, etc., etc.

So now I'm looking at Blind Boy Fuller - but haven't found any actual video images of him - yet. I do not intend to copy a single photograph (someone elses composition and copyright) - but to create a composite representation in a way that somehow expresses my impression of the artist after reading bios and recording histories and, most importantly, listening to the music itself. I've got lists laying around everywhere of possible blues artists to do - I'm thinking the more obscure the better.