These are pics in progress of a poster i am doing for the Hilton Head Piano Competition. Every year the organization holds a competition for SCAD students to make a poster for them. The winner gets 1000 dollars and some percentage of money from prints of the poster they sell. I know that i have already done a poster that looks much like this but i thought the concept was pretty solid for this (more so than on the greenland poster ((see older posts))) If it isn't immediately obvious the big shape that doubles as a piano is Hilton Head Island. It is pretty distinctively shaped like a tennis shoe (or a piano). As i am headed right now i will add more textures and shape-y stuff around the outside to kind of vignette it and i still need to give the guy color. although i kind of like him as he is. maybe i'll just give him value and keep it monochromatic. I dont know but at any rate I like the top one the best out of the three, the middle one doesnt have enough contrast and the third one has too much and focuses on the island more. The words will go in the bottom right corner. In previous years they always seem to choose pieces that are just a painterly picture of a piano or a piano on a sweeping abstract landscape of some sort, so maybe i wont get picked because i'm trying something different but i really like where this is going so maybe not. lots of maybes . . . To help my chances of success i have decided to do TWO pieces for this competition. i know that's crazy-talk with all of the work that i have anyway but, what can i say. my second piece (see below) is much more simple and graphic in nature.

in thumbs, while trying to avoid concepts that simply involved a piano on a vista, i wanted to convey what the competition was really about, bringing people together to play piano. i wanted the keys to act as a sort of zipper between the two piano shapes connecting them and giving a little bit more interest to an otherwise static image. i suppose you could say that the yin yang thing has to do with the fact that it is a competition between the good and evil forces in the professional piano world but it really just spawned out of them being a a black and white piano in that sort of shape to begin with. i think it adds something but i may take it out. i will switch out the drawing for the half painted painting as soon as i scan it tomorrow. . . not that anyone will read this until then .. . .