Fiddlin' Fred Price
This is a painting of my grandpa, Fred Price. He was a world class fiddler and toured during the Folk Revival of the '60s with Tom Ashley, Doc Watson, and Clint Howard. But what I remember is the sound of him sitting outside in the summer playing late into the night when he thought no one was listening. And I remember his humility. Whether he was performing for a crowd at Carnegie Hall or for his neighbors down the holler, his music was the same, and he always left folks with a smile on their faces.
One of the biggest challenges I faced in this painting was the lack of any quality color reference pictures. The picture at right was the best I could find, so it had to work. I started with a terre verde underpainting and added glazes for color. I knew it was finished when it felt like him.
Here's my grandpa with Clint and Doc on Pete Seeger's Rainbow Hour. Old Time Music at Clarence Ashley's was the album that sparked the Folk Music Revival of the 1960's.