Jan

Historic Mobile Street Renaissance Festival Poster Commissions

In the latest poster for the 2009 Fourth Annual Mobile Street Renaissance Festival

Smiling Faces on Mobile Street | ©Paul McCall | Original painting used for the 4th Annual Mobile Street Renaissance Festival

I went in a different direction yet again. For the past year or so, I’ve been exploring painting using what I call a synthetic cubist style, which draws on the use of swatches of color to emphasize contours and lined areas to provide contrast. I’m really excited about this work & feel like it was a breakthrough piece for me.

As it turns out, all of the paintings that I’ve produced for the Mobile Street Festivals have been acquired and will be included in the permanent collection of the new African American Art museum that they are building in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

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Dream Dancing | ©Paul McCall | Original painting for the Third Annual Mobile Street Festival

For the 2008 Third Annual Mobile Street Renaissance Festival poster, I decided to go a different route and use a more naieve style of painting to express the old-tyme quality that Hattiesburg & the Mobile Street are steeped in.

The title of this painting is called “Dream Dancers”. Although the final poster looks very different from my original design, I think it does a good job of capturing the feeling that I wanted to express in this particular painting. ______________________________________________________________

Hattiesburg Mobile Street Renaissance Festival - Poster 2

I just finished the design for the 2007 Second Annual Mobile Street Rennaissance Festival in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

In keeping with last years theme of area blues musicians I’ve chosen to paint Memphis Minnie, a blues singer & guitarist during the 1920’s through the 1950’s. She is known for her flamboyant attitude and

wonderful electric urban blues style that paved the way for many other famous blues musicians.
Her 1929 song, “When the Levee Breaks” was covered in the 1970’s by Led Zeppelin.

She is known for recording over 200 albums during her lengthy career! In 1980, Memphis Minnie was inducted into the Blues Foundation’s Hall of Fame.

I also included a train to represent the transportation heritage of Hattiesburg, the hub city!

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I have just completed my first commission of the year (2006) for the First Annual Historic Mobile Street Renaissance Festival in Hattiesburg, MS. It was a collaboration with another local artist, Spence Townsend. He painted the picture you see on the left. When he couldn’t be reached to make the changes the client requested, I was called in to complete the work. Normally I do not like altering another artist’s painting however, since he was unable to make the changes, I’m glad I could assist in making the client happy! The changes I’ve made can be seen in the painting on the right.

To find out more about the Mobiles Street Renaissance Festival visit their website here.