The Pilot #48 (top) SOLD, The Pilot #47 SOLD
If you go all the way back to the beginning of this blog, and my return to painting, five years ago or however long it's been that is where the little pilot and the red airplane make their first appearance, actually I"m not sure there's a picture of that here, I'll have to check at some point. Regardless, the Pilot, like the birdhouse, has been around a very long time, he/she comes and goes, the Pilot showed up in "Silver" (see labels) and then went away, came back for a commission, went away again etc.
The first Pilot that hung at the Wilson 96 sold the day I hung it, actually it sold before the bar had even opened, I'd wanted to work with a more reduced palette and painted the four, Jacques Cousteau, Joan of Arc, The Pilot and the Airman with that in mind. The pose/ orientation of that Pilot was perfect, a great little piece that came together quickly.
Of course with each show there is one (hopefully more) runaway success, the piece everyone has to have and with this show, it was the Pilot, it could've sold ten times over. I'd thought I could produce a few more, with different poses etc. but just couldn't do it, they'd be too similar, it was too soon. Once I started sorting through the new source material I'd found and started blocking in figure poses, backgrounds etc. I found a few poses that I thought could support the image of the Pilot, here are the first two. They are hanging at the Wilson 96 (on College for the umpteenth time) but I'm sure they won't be there long.
EDIT: the photo I'm talking about is not there, it's somewhere on my external hd I'm sure, so I'll track it down and post it in the next week or so.
cheers,
A.Shay Hahn
