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Queen of Clubs

APRIL 13, 2008
Queen of Clubs
For the Society of Newspaper Designers who are having their convention in Las Vegas this summer, I contributed a painting for an illustrators' deck of cards. Edel posted on this earlier offering a beauty. My card is the Queen of Clubs. I had to do this quickly but thought about it for a long time. At first I thought I would do it as a demo but never had a free moment. Initially I thought I would paint a queen surrounded by water and waves. A recent job drained me a bit of wanting to do another piece with waves so I went back to the drawing board. I kept thinking of painting a grand, impressive woman and remembered a cool sculpture in the back of the Brooklyn Museum. Behind the museum in a chain linked fenced area there are pieces of old buildings, sculptures that actually mostly came from the old Penn Station. I shot a photo of this statue years ago and just found it last week. Bingo. I altered it a bit, added an arm and staff and of course, flipped it over and painted the whole thing as a worn Trompe-l'oeil. That stuff I can do in my sleep. The question was, would I do two halfs or just one and clone it over. I decided to dig in and do the whole thing. I had fun. Back to the paying gigs this week.
This is mostly a drawing I have to say, but the trompe effects and color and contrast are all oil
I decided to make a painting for myself, so I was concerned that the trompe work. As a result, I painted it as a full card, complete with the edge. I'm sure I created a problem for the designer, but it's pro-bono and I'm sure they can figure it out. The AD is Tyson Evans
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