The Meaning

This Willie Dixon painting was done for a magazine called Big City Rhythm and Blues that did a special edition in tribute to him and the incredible influence he had on the development of the Chicago blues sound and scene.

Legendary Song Icons

The chess pieces up above symbolize his involvement in Chess Records, and he wrote the legendary Spoonful song (which is symbolized on upper right corner) and the song Little Red Rooster (which is symbolized on upper left corner). Spoonful was covered by one of my favorite sixties’ bands Cream with Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce who, along with The Rolling Stones, made this song world famous.

I came to realize how much he influenced so many later rock stars like Clapton, The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and others.

This painting is most closely related to “Creation of the Blues” and “Blues on the Bayou” because of the portraits of the musicians and their spiritual influence.

The Process

I developed a unique cloud formation that went from the top down to fade out in the red sky behind the Chicago city skyline. I sketched out the bigger clouds on top first then contiued to go down towards the cityscape until I could fade them out in the distance. I first painted the clouds with black paint and waited until it almost dried then blended white paint into it to create a gray haze over them.

The yellow outline around Willie which goes up around his bass and into the sky shows the soul of his music living on and influencing other musicians all over the world.

Soul of Willie’s Music

I studied old pictures of Wille Dixon to try to capture the emotional expression of the “soul of his music” on his face.

Chicago Skyline

I also used pictures of the Chicago City skyline to develop the background behind Willie. The cloud formations were developed by my sketches and then blended them with black and white oil colors over the sketched lines, and then finally outlined them with red and yellows.