THE WIZARD

This painting of Ozzie Smith is my first on linen instead of canvas. I built this painting from ground up with PVA sizing on raw linen, then oil ground, with the strategy of working on it un-stretched until I got a better feel for the end result. Very pleased with how it turned out, I took it to Santa Cruz to my favorite Art store and custom frame shop, Lenz arts to have them stretch it on wooden bars. I created a smaller second painting for the backside of a potential “wearable print,” an abstraction of an iconic Ozzie backflip, with faith one day of the St Louis Cardinals officially releasing this as limited edition apparel by their official team store. Working from a 35 slide negative I purchased 8 years ago, this project is another step in branching out into different MLB markets, bringing attention to the apparel creation I’ve worked so hard to perfect, while cementing a canon of work of the players I admired growing up.