a bob gibson ticket voucher 1969

Having proved the wearable print concept with the Warriors, I thought I’d get to the baseball players I admired growing up, and had good reference photos of. I’d bought this great image of Ozzie Smith on ebay 10 years ago. I dug it out and decided it should be the subject for my first oil painting since college. When I finished it mid 2021, Mark let me know I had a shot to sell to the ‘wearable prints’ to Cardinals retail team through his MLB license. Exercising the same faith I did in 2015, I decided to build a Cardinals player series, one at a time. After completing the Barry Bonds, I began a Bob Gibson. For a franchise with such a rich history, I figured I should begin with some of the all time greats. I dug deep in the concept bucket, and what came of it was the idea to make the original artwork a fictional (yet believable) ticket voucher for the 1969 season. I knew I wanted to include his larger than life statistical achievements, but couldn’t figure out how to include them all if his career would still be in progress. So I settled on the 1969 season. By this point, he’d have his 2 World Series MVP’s, Cy Youngs, Gold Gloves, multiple All Stars and an MVP. With the reference photo, I began to piece it together visually. In pastel pencil on sanded paper, I had his portrait in place before deciding the font on the left side, which made for some very tricky writing, avoiding smudging all the hard work in the face. On the right, I used the St. Louis arch as the “A” in ‘ACE.’ Overall, it maybe my most intensive work yet, but was very pleased with the result. I created a secondary pastel artwork for the shirt back, a cross section of the Old Busch stadium I captured from a larger image on a cloudy night. There’a a moody quality that I love, and it was a nice change of pace, being able to gesturally achieve the likeness and atmosphere of the stands and the light fixtures, without the same level of obsessive detail as the main work. I guess the only questions I have are, should I have included perforation marks around the edges of the artwork to make it look like a coupon? And more importantly will these original artworks and the wearable prints ever get exposure and have value to the loyal St. Louis fanbase?