Amy Winehouse

Amy Winehouse
16" x 12"
oil on canvas board, 2011

It was hard to resist. And I was not going to waste any of that little will power I posses on trying. Amy Winehouse died Saturday and I painted her just three days later. I didn't know much about her, I hadn't listened to her music much, I usually avoid the stars, the charts, and the Grammys,  and I still couldn't resist to paint her. Commercial intentions? Perhaps. Was I moved? Yes. I like Amy Winehouse's music you know, it may even make it in my list of 100 this year. The song? Back in Black.

I made the painting as a demonstration on portrait painting in a summer class for teens I teach in Bonita Springs. The class is a lot of fun, I had not taught teenagers before. The students knew about Amy Winehouse, they probably heard her music more than I did. Amy Winehouse may well be the only musical interest I have in common with these students. I started the demonstration by sketching out Winehouse's silhouette by means of the background. Not the background I found behind Winehouse in the photo, that was just gray, no I painted the lush green palms of Bonita Springs that I could see through the classroom windows. Next I painted the face, neck, and arms with a bright pink. Then her shirt in white and blue, followed by her hair in red and dark blue and the under painting was done. I picked it back up a half an hour later and spent another hour on it. Later that night I took it to my studio for another hour of refinement before I finished it the next day. If Back in Black will make the list depends on the next 6 or 7 months. The song now needs just one more point to make it (according to my ranking system: Once or twice a week I make a top 10 in which #1 receives 10 points, #2 gets 9 and so on. The following list is my 15th and latest top 10.)

1. Frances Bebey – La Condition Masculine (see previous blog; the one with the boobies on the cover)
2. Amy Winehouse – Back in Black (from her magnum opus Back in Black)
3. An outi solo from Crete (from A Collection of Traditional and Popular Songs and Dances of Greece)
4. Sinead O'Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U (another mega hit to charm me, what a week)
5. Beth Orton – Worms (opening track of Comfort of Strangers "Chickens don't fly but they got the wings... They got a wishbone where their backbone should've been")
6. Shelley Winters – Lie to Me (a thrift store find: Ladies of Burlesque, the song reminds of that joke in which a woman sleeps with Pinocchio—too raunchy to publish here)
7. Joanne Woodward – Something's Gotta Give (from the same album as above)
8. Mulatu Astatqe – Asha Gedawa (a beauty from Addis Ababa, from Ethiopiques 4)
9. Michal Michalesko – Yoske der Pedler (at the Yiddish Theater)
10. Arwiha and Ouled Sherif – A'yiti Ma Tkhebbi (Awesome Tapes From Africa)