ZOLTAR GRANTS YOU YOUR WISH! And the price is ONLY one soul! Presenting Fantasy and Airbrush Artist Ed Beard Jr's latest hot rod van art for the Vanarama events!
This is an artist proof print, signed and numbered edition out of 100, to a matted size of 16x20.
As always, Ed works with old-school hand-eye coordination techniques graphite pencil line on paper direct from the insane mind, to the hand, to the paper! This theme encompasses the great mystics of the Houdini era, the ZOLTAR fortune teller and the Era of mysticism.
Ed wanted to incorporate the art nouveau design elements using hand brushed acrylic and shadow and highlight airbrush technique, naturally used with the best liner brushes on the planet by Von Dago.
Ed also wanted to keep with the flavor of fonts on the van as well as the mural and flame work to accentuate the look and feel of both voodoo fortune-telling and Middle Eastern mystics that were prevalent in the iconic look of the time. If you look carefully and closely, you will see that the rims on the van have molded moons, the rear view mirror is an icon of a sun and the exhaust pipes as well as the supercharger breathe a mist of purple and green magical energy and smoke to which the mystic uses with his crystal ball and the all seeing eye.
Front grill is made of bones, and you will of course see a shrunken head hanging from that front grill. The hand for the palm reader is an accurate hand with all of its accurate symbols in their correct place.
The font style is reminiscent of the Ouija boards of the time.
The van's visor is a homage to the actual Zoltar mechanical fortune-telling machines that you would find on the boardwalks in the early part of the 20th century. Note the back rear spoiler is also in the shape of a planchette, as is the overall shape border work in red. note the crystal balls positioning is roughly where the clear glass of the planchette would normally reside.
This is not Ed's typical technique or approach but it was done specifically to capture that turn turn of 20th century art nouveau playbill look mixed with a little classic 70s, 80s, and 90s color feel.
