Thread: Mucha for millenium new year's eve

Hi all,

I painted this glass wall mural (approx. 220cmX180cm) at the end of 1999, just before the new year's eve for a prestigious restaurant-bar (Kallavi) in Fenerbahce-Istanbul which is for 250 people or 500 people (considering two floors). It is one of my underglass paintings; that is it was painted behind the glass in reverse order. It has turned left side to the right of the original as it was painted on the back of the glass. The glass is bulletproof as it is the most hardwaring type. Its frame has some constructional properties as the painting is quite heavy. I finished this painting in a month with the help of 30 bottles of 70cc Raki.

The original belongs to Alphonse Mucha and it is an affiche for the Theatre of Reneissance. You can see the original at this link: http://www.museedelapub.org/virt/affi/indexmucha.html

I changed the words and applied the ones for this bar. This was done just after the glass double doors which you will remember (http://www.airbrushtechnique.com/for...ead.php?t=5934). I admire Mucha and Art Nouvo period a lot.

This is an adaptation of a poster print for hairy and airy brush combination. I used transparent glass paint (German made Deka), auto paint and acrylic paint for airbrushed parts and water based mat decoration paint for delineation. I had also used some pearl for the airbrushed parts but unfortunately 5 years have done some damage to the painting and it faded a bit. There is no trace left from the pearls and some colors dissapeared. Only some dominant colors survived today, I guess the type of light they use in the restaurant did some harm.

I believe this one has a special place among all Mucha's works. I recommend you to have search on him if you haven't done before and give your opinions here.

I felt like I saw an old friend today when we went to take its pictures. The new owner of the place, whom I first met today, said that it was insured for 25000 USD. I just thought that I was nearly paid nothing as it was for a friend. That is life!!! But good to see it is doing well today (though not for me). As a joke, I said to the owner that it would worth more, perhaps 100000 USD if I were dead, but then added that he should not try to kill me just for this.

As you will see in the pictures the place is quite a good amosphere for drinking Raki and obviously it is vastly consumed here.

Beautiful work Optic!! The style with the hard brushed lines anthe the airbrush colors works very well togher...very nice!

Peet

Hi Barshark, Peet, Darla and Codepunk,

Thanks a bunch for your comments. Barshark, I looked into your works and thought that these were creative ideas. You have a nice approach to painting transparent surfaces. I completely support and apply the idea of giving backlighting to the transparent surfaces, mostly glass for my case, and probabaly that would be lexan for your works, to obtain some vivid effects. You are doing fine, and I believe you will improve a lot more in the future. Keep painting and follow your creative instinctincts. Try to catch new ideas for different cases.

Peet and Darla, thank you for your support and encouragements. Darla, if you ever come to İstanbul you will be my guest in this place, so will be Codepunk. For now you can drink your Raki just by looking at the pictures, I am sure thousands of bottles were drunk by looking at the original, already ; as Raki is usually ordered as bottles rather than single glasses.

Codepunk, I guess I shall start a thread on how to drink Raki and what goes with it as you have seen it is mouthwatering. There might be personal preferences though, such as; I like having hot chilly pepper and pickles with raki, and the watermelon and cheese combination should be from carefully chosen types. I will have a toast for you next time.

Here I send some more detail pictures from the glass mural...

I thank Don for his support as well, and if he approves I am thinking of explaining how to use hairy and airy brush together in one piece and in a reverse side glass painting, perhaps in a how-to thread...

Best wishes to you all...

that is a real nice painting, you probably would have never guessed it would be insured for that much. Can't get any better compliment than that, (well maybe being insured for the 100,000) LOL
Great job

Hi Army,

Nice post, thanks...I am not comparing myself to Van Gogh but I bet he would have produced more paintings if he had known they would be worth so much...

Another detail from the piece is attached by the way...