Live Event Painting Examples and other News

Show 18 of the Art of Jazz Tour with the The Birdland All-Stars Featuring Tommy Igoe
February 22nd, 2018
Indiana University, Ogle Center, New Albany, Indiana

iPad painting created live on stage using iPad Pro, Apple Pencil and the Procreate app.

Painting on canvas created live during the show using acrylic paint and ink (36″ x 30″). This painting is available for sale as a limited edition print on metal. See Prints..

(photo: Kirk Randolph)

“Definitely worth it! We hired Jeremy for a trade show in San Francisco and he was very flexible to do whatever we wanted. We had him split between doing digital portraits and traditionally painting 2 canvases and it all worked out well. He had all his equipment, was very friendly to our colleagues and provided some quality giveaways for all the attendees. Would definitely hire again in the future!”
– Jordan B.

Brief: To create iPad portraits of visitors in the mornings and work on a traditional media canvas in the afternoons.
Event: Two days painting on the AdvantEdge Health Solutions trade show booth at Anesthesiology 2018, the annual meeting of the American Society of Anesthesiologists.
The Digital Portraits: Each portrait subject received digital files of their portrait and the replay video immediately on completion, plus an 8×10 color print mounted in a branded display frame.
The Canvas Paintings: Each day visitors to the booth were invited to fill in raffle forms and at the end of each day the canvas painting created that day was raffled, to be shipped to the winning raffle ticket holder. The canvas paintings, which depicted different iconic views and artistic interpretations of San Francisco, were painted with acrylic ink and paint on 48″ x 36″ stretched premium canvas.

Here are some photos from the event:

Bridge to Bridge: The City by the Bay, Jeremy Sutton, 2018, 48″ x 36″, acrylic on canvas

Rainbow of Bridges, Jeremy Sutton, 2018, 48″ x 36″, acrylic on canvas

“Once upon a time in Amsterdam there was a Lindy Hop Swing Dance Exchange. Dancers came from all over the world to dance. The Amsterdam Lindy Exchange (ALX) set a Swing Out Challenge to dance all over the city. Lucia and Jeremy decided to take up the challenge! This is their story…”

Lucia and I won the Swing Out Challenge!

The most valuable prize we gained was the unforgettable memory of dancing all over Amsterdam!

Thank you ALX Team!!

As you can see from the instructions above they only ask for three locations but Lucia and I decided to go for all eight! We started at 3pm on the Saturday of the deadline and uploaded the final video at 1 minute to the 7pm deadline!!

Music credits:

Intro & Outro	Bumpy Roof Band
Westermarkt	Splanky & Shiny Stockings – Basie
A Canal Bridge	Broadway – Basie, Fly Me to the Moon – Sinatra/Basie
Dam	Lucas Martinez & Guiseppe Carpesi
De Waag	Corner Pocket – Basie
Ferry	Sent for You Yesterday – Basie
Rembrandtplein	Sent for You Yesterday – Basie
Magere Brug	Sent for You Yesterday – Basie
De Balie	Sent for You Yesterday – Basie

Recorded music from album: Count Basie Essentials

Black long-sleeved T-shirt Jeremy is wearing: Birdland All-Stars Art of Jazz Tour 2018

Dancers: Lucia Pellitero & Jeremy Sutton

Glossary:
Lindy Hop is the original form of swing dancing that originated in the 1930s danced mostly to big bands like the Count Basie Orchestra.
A Lindy Exchange is a small dance festival where a local community of Lindy Hop dancers invites other Lindy Hoppers from all over the world to come and enjoy dancing in their city for a weekend.

Thank you to all the very nice folks enlisted at each location who kindly followed our cinemagraphic instructions and took time to record the videos of us with my iPad!

iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, Procreate 4

This sketch was created at about 33,000 feet altitude on board a Gatwick to Oakland Norwegian Air flight.

iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, Procreate 4

iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, Procreate 4

These sketches were both created at about 33,000 feet altitude on board an Oakland to Gatwick Norwegian Air flight. Onome was another passenger who was sitting across the aisle from me. At first I just sketched him while he was sleeping, then I showed him the sketch and, as he was watching my iPad, I created the second portrait you see at the top of this page.

iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, Art Set 4

Created from observation as part of a video tutorial demo introducing the new Art Set 4.You can watch this video, and many others, on my educational subscription-based web site PaintboxTV.com.

Afro-Cuban Jazz Cartel

40″ x 24″, pigment ink print on canvas

This painting is inspired by the incredibly vibrant and lively music of Brian Andres & The Afro-Cuban Jazz Cartel who I saw performing at the Red Poppy Art House in San Francisco. This is a photo I took of them playing that evening:

I created this painting using Corel Painter 2019 on a Mac with a Wacom tablet and printed it out onto canvas. The brushes I used were all custom brushes I created to give a drippy / splashy look and which are included in the Painter Extras on my subscription-based educational web site PaintboxTV.com.

This video shows myself and a wonderful group of fellow Lindy Hop swing dancers performing at the DayBreaker / SF – The Great Gatsbeats party at the Bently Reserve, the old Federal Reserve Bank Building built in 1924 and designed in Beaux-Arts and Moderne style by same architect, George William Kelham, who designed the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition. Thank you Mustafa for inviting us to add a little Lindy Hop flavor to your event, to the DayBreaker / SF Team (Hannah, the MC and the DJ etc) and to fellow performance dancers Angie, Calvin, Ken, Megan and Rebecca, and to Elise for the videography (and some dancing, as you’ll see in the video!)

The music track featured in this video is “It Don’t Mean A Thing, If It Ain’t Got That SWING!” (Jazz Reconstructions Electro Swing Remix).

“Kim and Gammy: Generations”
Portrait of Jazz Singer Kim Nalley and her Grandmother singing “When the Saints Come Marching In” together at Le Colonial, San Francisco
2007

It was very moving to see my friend, legendary jazz singer Kim Nalley, being joined onstage by her grandmother, affectionately known by Kim as Gammy, in Le Colonial, San Francisco. I used one of the photos I took of the special performance as reference to create this painting (above) of that precious creative moment in which love, passion, family and music spanned across generations in powerful synergy. Sadly Gammy passed away and Kim asked me for this painting to show at her funeral service.

More recently I attended a very special live session with Kim on vocals and Tammy Hall on piano at the KPFA studios (“BAJABA ShowCase” where BAJABA is an acronym for “Bay Area Jazz And Blues Artist”) when Kim received the BAJABA Maisha Ya Kaza Bora Award (“Maisha Ya Kaza Bora” is Swahili which means “Good Work for Life” or the equivalent of “Lifetime Achievement”). Congratulations, Kim!! Here (below) is a video of her warming up before the performance with a beautiful rendition of the classic “Shiny Stockings”.

After a phenomenal Art of Jazz Tour on the East Coast and Mid-West with the Birdland All-Stars featuring Tommy Igoe, the Art of Jazz live performance experience mixing art and music came to the West Coast! On July 14, 2018, I painted on stage with the Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy at the Dinkelspiel Auditorium, Stanford University, Stanford, California. This show was part of the Stanford Jazz Festival 2018.

Jeremy, you’re as much a jazz artist as we are. Visually representing what we do sonically.
– Tommy Igoe

Performing on the Art of jazz Tour with the Birdland All-Stars in Kutztown, Pennsylvania

Here is the description from the Stanford Jazz Festival web site:

Tommy Igoe and the Art of Jazz

An exciting big band event — with a twist!

Here’s the artwork I created on stage at this concert:

Acrylic and oil stick on canvas, 36″ x 36″

Acrylic ink and oil stick on Arches cold press 140 lb fine art paper, 22″ x 30″ – seen here with winning bidder

Acrylic ink and oil stick on Arches cold press 140 lb fine art paper, 22″ x 30″

Acrylic ink and oil stick on Arches cold press 140 lb fine art paper, 22″ x 30″

Acrylic ink and oil stick on Arches cold press 140 lb fine art paper, 22″ x 30″

iPad Pro, Apple Pencil, Procreate app (replay shown in video above)

From the concert description:
The powerhouse Tommy Igoe Groove Conspiracy is all about excitement. This mighty 15-piece band unites players from Tower of Power, the Doobie Brothers, and Steely Dan, and unleashes them on brilliantly arranged charts. In this innovative show, Tommy is adding another artist to the roster — this time a visual artist, the painter Jeremy Sutton. Tommy and Jeremy will play off each other, with Jeremy painting what the music makes him feel — which you’ll be able to watch via an on-stage projection — and Tommy calling tunes based on how Jeremy’s paintings make him feel. And the resulting art will be available for purchase after the show! Tommy himself is the long-time leader of New York’s thrilling Birdland band and a Broadway drum guru — he wrote the drum book and shared conducting chores for Broadway’s The Lion King — and he reinvented his big band for his new SF musical home. Like the Buddy Rich juggernaut of the ’60s, TIGC channels your favorites — songs by Joe Zawinul, Joshua Redman, Arturo Sandoval, and Snarky Puppy — through a superstar brass line-up that manages to be scarily precise and wildly anarchic all at once. Only a studio and stage heavyweight like Tommy could wrangle the monsters assembled here.

Personnel:
Tommy Igoe, drums
Drew Zingg, guitar (Steely Dan)
Jeremy Sutton, visual artist