Salsa Dancers Commission

32" x 42" Oil on linen. copyright Norman Long 2009

This recently completed commission saw me flown over to Cuba to paint Salsa Dancers. Not really, but it did mean doing a lot of research. I didn't know the first thing about Salsa. The clients kindly agreed to dance in my studio while I did photos and studies and they taught me that the lady is the centre of attention while the man leads the moves.

The setting was to be Cuban. In this composition, with its high viewpoint, only the musicians are visible - other preliminary work involved Cuban style architecture.The couple dancing in the background are the main couple again. Degas said that a painting requires as much cunning as the perpetration of a crime. Here the musicians are drawn from internet images. The chair in the foreground is painted from life in the studio and various body parts are amalgamated for the figures. I was specifically asked for a fairly descriptive painting (i.e. not "painterly"), which increased the challenge of capturing light and movement.

Cafe Series, Philadelphia

The Bishop's Collar, 18" x 20", oil on linen




Jack's Firehouse, 20" x 18", oil on linen

Mugshots Cafe, 18" x 20", oil on linen

Rembrandt's, oil on linen, 18" x 20"

This series of four Philadelphia Cafes was commissioned by my good friend and landlord Brian LaMay in generous exchange for a few months' rent. They were completed through a process of drawings and colour studies on the spot, along with some direct work on the canvas for two of the paintings. The hastle of carrying wet paintings on the bus is more than compensated for by the feeling of real connection with the subject.

Two of the paintings were secret presents for Brian's friend Cecelia, who lived in the Art Museum area where these cafes are located. Not for the first time, I was "busted" while painting on the street when Cecelia and her mum thought they would visit Rembrandt's cafe.