The Aaron Judge Art Show
A plethora of paintings to celebrate 62
As the Yankees spent the last couple of weeks closing out their season, and Aaron Judge chased Roger Maris’ Yankees and American League record of 61 home runs hit in a single season, the big guy became my sole source of subject matter. Beginning with a He-Man inspired painting, through some watercolor sketches, and ending with a few digital and multimedia pieces, here’s my pictorial tribute to the chase for 62. (To purchase these or any of my other art or designs, as always, visit my gallery store at BigCartel or clothing and merch shop at TeePublic.)
First up is a piece I thought up a long time ago, finally got around to sketching out this spring, and ultimately finished up last month. It is, to any child of the ‘80s, obviously a take on the shot of Prince Adam transforming into He-Man in front of Castle Grayskull, with Judge and his bat standing in for He-Man and his sword of power, and Yankee Stadium standing in for Grayskull. Although seemingly a bit more simple than a lot of my other stuff, trying to mimic the look of an inked and painted cartoon cel over a hand-painted background, design a Masters Of The Universe cartoon Judge, especially trying to maintain his likeness at that head angel, and trying to match the background look while making Yankee Stadium look like Grayskull while also being unmistakably itself…. Well, it was more of a pain in the ass than I though. Lol. The original painting has sold, but you can get signed art prints over at my gallery store, and t-shirts and all other kinds of merch over at my TeePublic shop.
Next up are a few watercolor sketches I painted live during games over at the Yankee Twin Eatery in between serving drinks. A few have already sold, but the rest are still available in my gallery store.
And last, but certainly not least, here are two designs and a painting I came up with to celebrate number 62 itself. The first are two fairly simple ideas that I whipped up pretty quickly in photoshop, but I think are really great, fairly clever t-shirt designs, and are now up at TeePublic. The subway sign design I came up with that night, and, honestly, I’m kind of amazed I haven’t seen it anywhere. The other is from that great shot of the ESB lit up in pinstripes that was going around. As soon as I saw it, this design immediately popped into my head. A little cropping, color tweaking, and graphic add-ons later, and we had two designs that I cannot wait to wear in the Bronx this October.
Finally, my “official” art piece celebrating and depicting Judge’s 62nd homer. I decided to mix things up a little with this one, literally. It’s a 9” x 12” mixed media ink, marker, and watercolor piece with a little colored pencil. The point was to really make Judge and the number 62 stand out and look as illustrative and graphic as possible, with the Rangers catcher being a less detailed colored pencil and watercolor sketch, and the rest of the background just very loose watercolor not doing anything more than suggesting what’s supposed to be there. I really like it. Not sure yet if I’ll offer it on TeePublic, but I am selling the original and offering a limited run of 62 signed and numbered prints. Both are available in my gallery store.
