Rolling Stones Guitar
A great example of Piers ability to blend his knowledge of engineering and his eye for design together with his mastery of the Airbrush.The original brief of this project was to attain the signatures of the current members of the Rolling Stones to complement Piers stunning airbrush renderings of them. The only way to accomplish this was to send off the pick guard from the guitar as ‘Stones management made it clear that signing the guitar body wasn’t practical due to logistical reasons. This meant that the artwork could not be approached in the same way that the Pink Floyd guitar had been. In order to show case Piers talents he decided that although the Guitar would be custom painted in this case so would the bespoke base on which it sat. This allowed enough area to do all the portraits of the band past & present. But herein arose another problem. The base would obviously be stationary on either a table or plinth and therefore some of the artwork would not be seen. Here Piers used his ingenuity as an engineer to design a centre section to the base that rotated within a stationary top and bottom sections. Using two 2.5 rpm turntable motors Piers designed a system where the guitar rotates one way and the inner base section rotates the other. This involved the manufacture of quite a number of bespoke parts and some tricky wiring to get power to the LED spotlights atop the guitar stand.Once the raw MDF parts were made they were sealed & primed with a heavy primer. So heavy in fact Piers has to clean the spray booth afterwards! Then the pieces are sanded to a perfect shape and all but one based in black and topped in a satin clear. The centre section however is based in white and cleared. This provides the luminescence for the renderings Piers applies over the top. There are 7 images on the base and 4 on the guitar itself. All of the band members over the years are depicted on the base in both colour and black & white. They are intertwined in a musical score applied in variegated gold leaf with a purple pinstriped edge. Obviously the score needs to be appropriate so its the opening bars of ‘It’s only rock n roll but I like it’! Piers has spent great effort in creating a theme that runs throughout the piece. The purple marbleized paint adorns both the guitar and the moving part of the base together with the beautifully applied gold leaf scrolls & music bars. The base also has an inset upholstered in purple velvet as is the hand bound photo Album. The album contains progress photos of the renderings as well a certificate verifying the signatures. The whole piece can be contained in a bespoke removable optical quality Perspex dome. Now the piece is complete Piers has made it available for sale and welcomes offers.
Instagram Facebook Pinterest Youtube