So why Elton?
There are some things in life which make you stop because they are truly memorable and they stick with you through life and are a reference point. As an avid music lover and old school listener of vinyl, there are few artists that really replicate how they're actually recorded.
The last person, in my opinion, that truly did that was Freddie Mercury at Live Aid; it's a point in history in true showmanship. Well, a couple of weeks ago Elton took to the stage at Glastonbury and for me he achieved that same level of professionalism, showmanship and true star quality - Glastonbury for me was Elton, if that is how he leaves the world stage then he went out on the highest of highs. So much so that I wanted to capture that spirit in an art piece to celebrate his achievement and magic, or as I have named it 'Elton's Glastonbury'.
The Process
Traditional artist techniques meet with the new art world. Whilst Andy Warhol's techniques still inspire and are just as relevant and inspirational today, I wanted to put my own spin on it, creating something unique, inspirational and memorable in addition to my artography and glass paintings.
Starting with an image that is 4-colour, the technique is to then reproduce this in B&W to change the tonal range and overexpose to create contrast and dynamic highlights and low lights whilst creating a grain to add texture.
Using reflective glass to which gels are added to bring out the overall colour and display the highlights such as Elton's glasses for instance. This is laid over the print.
This is then reshot with the overlayed image with higher intensity colouration to create the striking coloured effect and posterization effect.
This is outputted as Giclée print using the latest colour fast inks to maintain true colour representation on high quality super white 285gsm board. The final stage is to then apply gold leaf to enhance further aspects that benefit from being highlighted and that creates a striking and dynamic effect under light or in the evening, bringing my art to life for years to come. Each piece is hand crafted by myself and each limited edition print will be in fact a one off; as the gold is not applied by a printing technique but by my own hand, each one is unique and special.
- Andy Taylor
