All That Glitters

15" x 22", watercolour, 1998, private collection

This is a painting of Elaine Secord, the singer for a Toronto band called Squirm that broke up years ago. The title is taken from my second favourite song of theirs (my favourite being "Cold," the title track from their 1998 CD). They were a great high-energy band and Elaine's vocals were part of the draw for me.

The subsequent paintings she's in are all based on photos from the shoot we did for that CD. When I saw this strong profile I immediately was reminded of Alphonse Mucha's posters (he was inspiring a lot of my work at the time) and I just had to paint it with a few Mucha-esque elements (the circular motifs, the curls of her hair, the heavy outline).

Graphite sketch.

Mostly, this sketch was to experiment with the possibility of an art nouveau background, and not to assign a specific motif or pattern.

I did an abstracted version of this called Raise the Roof.

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