Victoria Falls

Here's a photo that I had to digitally remove the people in it. The photo is from Victoria Falls in Africa at a place called, 'The Devil's Pool'. Basically, once a year, the flow of the falls in this particular area is at a safe level, and people can swim as close as possible to the edge of the falls within the pool area without continuing over the edge and falling into the gorge; this is possible due to a natural rock wall just below the water and at the very edge of the falls that stops their progress despite the current.

The project was to take these smiling people and remove them from the photo with no added enhancements (i.e. sharpening the image, changing the scenery, altering the lighting, blah, blah, blah). All I had to do was remove the people. In Photoshop CS4, if you hit the 'S' key, you can paint over an area using a portion of the photograph. I just used the option key on the MAC - alt on the PC - and pasted over them with water from a different section of the photo.

Mucha

Here's a mural in our living room my wife had me do. I really admire Alphonse Mucha's artwork, and she said this was by far one of her favorites of his. The only change I made to it was I covered her up, as she was once in the nude. I took some photos from the inside of Uday's palace (Uday was the son of Saddam Hussein) and one of the photos consisted of this beautiful chest of drawers. On the doors of the chest were beautiful designs that I decided to put in the mural. Anyway, my wife loves it, I'm happy with it, and I plan to do another one soon.

Aiesha

Here is the completed portrait I finished on or around the 19th of April. The lady, Aiesha, was just the ideal client to work with. She was very open to any ideas, she provided the photos I needed, and made herself very accessible. Her wedding is Saturday, 1 May 2010, and I wish her and her husband many, many years of wedded bliss.

Muhammed Ali

A portrait collage I completed of Muhammed Ali. In this charcoal drawing, I drew it on an 11x14 sheet of charcoal paper. The background was darkened with a light coat of charcoal stick, and then I went over that layer with acrylic paint. I faded the charcoal into the acrylic to really try and heighten the sense of what's going on. I didn't want each drawing connecting, so I decided to fade them in. Ali's first fight was with Sonny Liston, and for their rematch, he knocked Liston to the canvas and stood over him, shouting for him to get up. The photographer, Neil Leifer, who snapped this photograph probably had no idea how famous the photograph would be. I decided to recreate this photograph at the bottom of the drawing, and complete the top with his last notable fight with George Foreman. Prints are available on a high gloss paper for $20.00, so just email me at johnpriceart@gmail.com if you'd like to purchase one..

Drapery Study

This is a study I was doing of drapery in charcoal. I think there's a difference in how light is shown in clothing, and I took the drapes and tacked them to a corkboard, and went from there. I shined an incandescent light right above it on the right hand side and well ... you get the point.

Samson

Here is the completed image of Samson. It's a graphite 11x14 realistically rendered abstract drawing of the Old Testament judge. Artwork, years ago, used to tell stories and that's something I wanted to try and depict here. But, what's going on in this? What's up with all the flies, or hornets or bugs? The bugs are honeybees, and the brain has been transformed into a honeycomb. Two of the first sins that Samson committed was when he went through a vineyard, and after killing a lion, he returned to it later on to find honeybees in the rotting carcass. Under Nazarite Law - which Samson was - they were forbidden to touch anything of the vine, or eat of the vine, and they were forbidden to touch a carcass.

As I thought of Samson, I wondered if these things ever haunted him. In this scene here, we see Samson deep in thought. He shows no fear, for he's been in battle many times. The hair of his head is no longer long, and he's in captivity by the Philistines. Here he sits, just before his eyes are put out, and I wonder if those two things, the vineyard and the honeycomb, haunted him. That was the beginning, and from that time, he began to go down the wrong road.

For the opening of the face, I went to the Southside Surgical Specialist Clinic in Petersburg, VA to Dr. Nicolata's office (one of the finest doctors in my opinion) and they provided me with some medical illustrations to go off of. I had to really use my imagination to try and make it look like the skin was pulled back and make it as realistic as possible. I had a medical student at VCU - Virginia Commonwealth University - look at my work once I finished and she let me know that the only thing I had off on the opening to the mouth was one vein that needed to be pushed over slightly.

Anyway, that's the drawing, and the story behind it.

Marilyn Monroe

Here is a drawing I just completed of Marilyn Monroe. The drawing is about 11x15 (why that size, I don't know) in charcoal. If anybody wants prints, just email me. You can also check me out on Facebook - www.facebook.com/johnPriceArt