Jimi Hendrix

by Ben Duarri-Screen Prince

The third calligram in The Royalty Series, Jimi Hendrix, is entirely hand drawn lettering using lyrics from "Are You Experienced?", from his break-through album of the same title. I drew from the phsychedelic posters of the time such as Martin Sharp's Bob Dylan cover print of Oz magazine,“Blowing in the Mind” and the work of John Van Hamersveld, Stanley Mouse and Alton Kelly, among others.

Here, Jimi is elevated to a sun-god status, a messiah of rock and roll, with little sun rises in his eyes and mouth refering to the line “we'll hold hands and then we'll watch the sun rise from the bottom of the sea... ” that makes up his jaw and arched moustache and side burns.

The overall impression I wanted to acheive was that of an apparition or hallucination in a cloud of purple smoke and golden sunlight passing through it.

So far, one edition of 20 of the classic gold -lightly blended with green edges at the beginning of the run- and purple has been printed with a slight magenta blend at the edges. So far only 1 run of 20 on white A2 stock has been printed aswell as a few sets of fluoro colours on fluoro paper.

Last month I got all my art work out and made this print as a 3 colour print, with the face area having the brightest area.

They all turned out to be 1/1's because I have these sessions where I have to excersise each possibility which leads to other possibilities of colour combinations. These are now available.

What I have also done is I am now using this print to experiment with dark paper varnish and hand colouring with pigment powders, including metalics. The first proofs of this technique are also available.

* Screen Prince calligram art prints and posters

are available now at artrepublic.com

or contact the artist directly at

thescreenprince(at)hotmail(dot)com