Another Night Out With The Stars

This painting is a recreation of a painting that I did 30 years ago. Back then, it was perhaps the most dramatic painting that I had done to date. It was the key visual for one of my gallery exhibitions which I turned into a poster that served as the invite. The name of it then was, "A Night Out With The Stars". The painting sold and I knew the owners. About a year ago, they moved and I asked them if they were going to re-hang the painting and they told me it had been lost or stolen in the move. That always bewildered me as it's a large painting and it was framed – the frame itself was about a $250 frame. The original featured a sky, with the stars, moon and glow around the tuxedo clad body all being done by airbrush. I knew that would be the challenge with this particular one as I no longer do airbrush work. I made a few minor changes along the way – there are now five buttons visible instead of four and I changed the shirt size from 16-1/2 to 17-1/2. The glow around the body is pretty reminiscent of what it was before and the moon now has a bit more texture to it – but if you compared the original with this new version, those are about the only differences you would notice. As to the actual concept, I remember back when I first created it that I was thinking about being all dressed up with no place to go. For some reason, I thought it would be cool to have a tuxedo clad body without a head. The individual is going out for a big night with the stars but he's forgotten his head! It's a very striking image and with its 36" x 48" size, commands attention. I'm quite happy with the result.