SAy hey !

After Gibson, I turned to render another MLB legend, one of the greatest to ever grace the diamond, the Say Hey Kid, Willie Mays. With ideas of building a series of wearable art for the SF Giants, and after the previous labor intensive pastel drawing of Gibson, my aim here was to do something different, simple and get a polished drawing in less than a week. From a black and white slide negative I’d purchased on Ebay of Mr, Mays circa 1964, I decided it would be fun to experiment with Canson Mi Tientes toned flannel grey paper, using graphite, white charcoal and Mars Lumograph black pencils to capture the value range. It was a bit of stretch at first, I didn’t know how the materials would interact, but I soon got the feel and embraced the imperfections, and loved how the paper texture lent to a grainy vintage aesthetic. I tediously hand stenciled “Say Hey” on a separate page, following the template of the Giants uniform font from the 1960’s, with the intention of using it as the shirt back artwork. I’ve always taken the approach of whatever the artwork needs to best execute the concept, and this time I decided less is more, and to allow the toned paper and Willie’s larger than life gaze to fill the negative space.