David Bowie

It's been awhile since I did one of my inspiration watercolors. This time, the person who I have drawn an immense amount of inspiration from is none other than the late David Bowie.

That still doesn't sound right, but there it is.

When he died I wondered why it bothered me so much. Being that this person I had never met. Not even close. I had never even seen him in concert, dammit! Then I read something on the internet about such things and it said that these are the people that help you define who you are, who you want to be, or like to be, for that matter. I liked that and soon realized the truth in it. Bowie was always there, really. I grew up in the seventies. Spiders From Mars, Ziggy Stardust, etc. This guy wasn't Zeppelin, The Who or The Beatles. He was pretty unique. Made one think about things. I remember sitting in a friend's living room one morning while he was getting ready to walk to school and we were watching MTV and Scary Monsters and Superfreaks came on. I remember thinking just how weird that all was, but just so freaking awesome. Fame, Starman, Fashion, Rock & Roll Suicide, Golden Years, Panic In Detroit, etc. These were all distinctly Bowie. I love the words as much as the music. A true artist.

In keeping with some continuity with these watercolors, I've stuck to the three color palette and am trying to get better and better with this. A few years ago while in Iowa, I came to like the paintings of Marvin D. Cone who was a friend and fellow regionalist of Grant Wood. On some of his paintings he used this color arrangement (white, black and yellow) and I loved it.

I sneaked a little blue in there, in case you didn't notice.