Chris Simonite's Cubo-Weirdism Blog! A Blog about Chris Simonite's Art by Chris Simonite. Who the Hell else?

Last week on social media, I posted my version of Andy Warhol's famous painting of Mick Jagger, in which I loosely copied the original, but added the Rolling Stones 'Lips' logo in place of Mick's mouth. I've been messing around with Warhol inspired imagery and also wanting to do more music related paintings. It feels like after my series of "national treasures", a good followup would be legendary musicians and rock stars. 

This is, of course, not new. I had already done a portrait of John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix and Neil Young, and most recently my take on the Beatles Get Back album cover. To make a short story long, Mick seemed like a good next subject. So who might I follow a portrait of Mick Jagger up with? Why Keith Richards, of course! And since I painted his songwriting partner in the style of Warhol, I should do one of Keif in that style too, no?

As far as I can tell from my research, Warhol did not paint Richards in a similar style to his Jagger portrait (though he did do a pencil drawing of Richards and Ron Wood), so I would have to make it up from scratch. And that didn't seem like a particularly difficult challenge, but it was ultimately unsatisfying. It never got past the initial sketch stage. All I could think was that even though the Stones were at the height of their popularity when they were very young, when I think of Keif, I think of him the way he is now. You know how his face is falling off? Okay, that sounds harsh. What I meant to say is, his face just keeps getting more and more interesting. Who has more character in their face than Keith Richards?

Digital Sketch of Keith Richards for an abandoned "Warhol" style portrait.

So obviously, I had to do my Keith Richards portrait based on his current look, and that would probably work best if I just paint him the usual way I paint any other subject. And here is the result. So now that I'm thinking about it, I ask myself this question: who, besides Keith Richards just seems to have more and more character in his face as he not-so-gracefully ages? I'm thinkin' Mick Jagger! So I have to do another one of Mick to go along with the one of Keif. I'll call it a diptych and sell them together. Well, okay, I'd probably sell them individually, but that's a topic for another time, say after I've actually done the new/old Mick. 

Keif, 11" x 14", oil on canvas, 2022. 

Lastly, when I do these portraits of famous musicians, I like to promote them on social media by playing their songs. These days it has to be in the form of reels or short TikTok videos, since Instagram has abandoned IGTV (though you can still go to my profile to see my long-form Hendrix cover videos). And since reels and TikToks are short and since I'm the former lead guitarist of bands you've never heard of, I've lately been playing some of my favourite guitar solos in my reels. This also makes sense since I'm not much of a singer.

Anyway, my plan is to do some of my guitar solo reels for some Stones songs. What are your favourites? Do you have any favourite Keith Richards solos? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram. Also, if you're not following me on TikTok, please give me a follow, I'm new there @chrissimoniteart. That's also my handle on Insta, so please follow me there too, if you haven't already!