A Pop of Art

Victoria Johnson
Aug 14
3 min read

Updated: Aug 21

Let's start with the obvious and prosaic: It's August. It feels like I've watched summer fly by from the window of a bullet train. Summer is my busy season. Now that it's starting to show signs of slowth (did I just invent a word?) I've been able to create a little pop of art—my artistic representations of two cultural icons, or what this world calls 'celebrities'.

I have quite a few cultural icons in my digital portfolio. Not because I idolize such as these. I simply paint what I like and some of what I like happens to be the look and style of the influencers of modern society.

'Florence'

Florence Evelyn Nesbit was the most sought after model of the Gilded Age starting at the tender age of 15. Hers was the look of that age. The inspiration behind artist Charles Dana Gibson's 'Gibson Girl'. Considered the world's first supermodel. The first 'pin up' for Coca Cola. Sold more advertisements for William Randolph Hearst than he ever thought possible. A fatal beauty. In 1906, her husband, Harry K. Thaw, was accused of shooting Stanford White, her onetime love interest, launching The Trial of the Century.

Seems we would be hard put to find an extraordinarily beautiful and prominent woman of society not embroiled in scandal. Seems one can't even escape scandal on a very prosaic suburban street.

'Young Ozzy'

I had planned to do an artistic representation of a young Ozzy Osbourne awhile ago. The image I would use to draw from sat in my To-Do folder for quite some time, I just never got around to it. With his recent passing, it was as good a time as any to get around to it.

Before John Michael Osbourne fronted the metal band Black Sabbath, before he became the godfather of metal, before he started looking like an 80s crazy train, before he starred in his own reality show, young Ozzy had a fine-featured, sensitive face that inspired this artistic representation.

But who of us wouldn't look fresher and more sensitive when young? Before age and experience etches itself deeply upon the face?

Other iconic art from my arsenal

Girl Crush Socialite (Edie Sedgwick) and The Legendary Cooke (Sam Cooke)

Kamancha (Roy Smila, musician from the southern Negev) and The Great Chinggis Khaan (inspired by Mongolian metal band, The Hu)

Sir Paul (McCartney) and Ella (Fitzgerald)

Revisiting 'Old' Friends

As the metronome ticks a little slower, I've been having fun revisiting some of my earlier works. Like Flamenka, created in 2018 when I was just starting my Sketchie journey.

In the past six years I've created A LOT of art. It's quite an eclectic collection because if I had stuck to one theme I'd have grown bored in five seconds. My interests and inspirations are random. My art reflects that.

It's a kind of cool dynamic; to see my art progress while using the same techniques and processes from Day One. As a digital artist, I now have to assure when applying to art calls that I don't use AI in my process of creation. I haven't even experimented with some of the more advanced tools at my disposal in my creative apps, much less take the AI short cut.

I've been told some of these advanced tools can save me time. I don't need to save time when I enjoy every minute of what I'm doing. Creating art is one of few opportunities I get to sit still, where the world stops accept for what's happening on the canvas. I relish that time. To do otherwise would be like taking a road trip to the San Francisco Baby Area to soak up the coastal scenery and your travel companion suggests taking highway 5 to 'save time'. Ugh! As if!

It doesn't matter how advanced tools or technology become in creating art. I prefer my art to branch, thrive, and bear fruit using the same old roots. For a fine artist who uses technology that advances faster than advancing technology (hmmm), that may make me appear obstinate, intransigent, hidebound. But then there's that old saying, if it ain't broke...