Art of Football

by jstovall | December 31, 2006 at 03:33 am

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The finals of this year's football season are well underway. The college bowls, the NFL playoffs, the run up to the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl itself -- all of these will be hard to escape over the next month or so, even if you are not much of a fan.

So here's a slideshow that gives you something a little different -- an artistic view of football.

As an artist, I am interested in movement and figures. Movement -- all the twists and turns the body can make -- is well represented a football game. One of the things these paintings show is how these movements can intersect.

Almost all of the paintings in this slide show are watercolors executed on 11 x 14 Bristol Board. The exceptions are a watercolor on Arches 140 CP (cold press paper) and a pen and ink drawing, both pictured separately. As the viewer can tell, I have painted these in a loose and suggestive style, rather than going for any type of photo-realism.

These characters are not individual players, but the colors they wear often suggest the two universities where I have spent the most time in my life -- Alabama and Tennessee. I was privileged to teach at Alabama for 25 years and observe the mighty football tradition the folks have there. And I came from Tennessee (undergrad 1970, doctorate 1978) and have now returned there to teach. Both the Tennessee and Alabama football traditions are wonders to behold.

WARNING: SHAMELESS COMMERCE UPCOMING: If you want to check out more of my work, you can do so at this article on NowPublic, or you can go to First Inning Artworks. (You may also get a clearer view of the slide show at Flickr.) Most anything you see at these spots is available for purchase.

Meanwhile, sit back and enjoy the games, and maybe this slide show.