February 5, 2020

I tore it apart

By Rob de Vries Assignment, Elvis in charcoal, Oil painting 0 Comments

January 29 until February 4, 2020
I started on “Elvis in charcoal #230 last Monday. I wasn’t very satisfied while I was working on it but continued in the hope that I could fix it. I looked at the drawing again on Tuesday morning and tore it to pieces…
Because I use black ink in the darkest areas there is no way to correct it if something is not right.

Tomorrow I will start over again:-)

Oil painting
The assignment I was working on for a while is finished. I still can’t show it anywhere on the internet because it is a surprise. As soon as it has arrived on it’s destination I’ll post the image with some work in progress shots as well.

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Tags:1956, Art, Chalk, Charcoal, Colored paper, Drawing, Elvis, Elvis art, Elvis Presley, fifties, portrait, series

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The beginning
I remember well. It was the summer of 1973 or 1974, we were on vacation with my aunt and uncle. For two weeks my uncle constantly sang the first lines of “Blue suede shoes”.
I asked him what that was and he told me it was an Elvis Presley song. Back in Amsterdam I immediately went to the record store and bought the LP “Elvis’ Golden Records Volume 1”. “Blue suede shoes” wasn’t on it, but I was immediately sold.
After that, all my pocket money went to Elvis records, books and related things.

In the meantime
A few years later I also started drawing and painting Elvis portraits. Of the countless I had made, only three have survived, and that’s only because they hung on my mother’s wall.
Once I grew up, my interest in Elvis waned somewhat. I was still a fan but not so fanatical that I bought everything I could find. That changed in 2007 when we went on vacation to Colorado in the US. In the three weeks we were there we took a domestic flight to Memphis to visit Graceland. That was an unforgettable event after which the Elvis virus struck again in full force.
Back in the Netherlands I restarted making Elvis portraits and collecting books and vinyl.

And now, a portrait of Elvis (almost) every week
Since that visit to Graceland I have been making a portrait of Elvis (almost) weekly using charcoal, ink and white chalk on colored paper. Most of these are sold. Mostly through Facebook and Instagram. In 2022 I hope to make the 300th Elvis in Charcoal drawing.
I also work on commission, your favorite Elvis photo as a drawing or painting. There are even regular customers who already own more than twenty of my Elvis artworks.
My Elvis portraits hang on people’s walls all over the world. A.O. in the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway, Ireland, England, Italy, Australia, Scotland and the United States.