Canson Cutie: Xanadu - Kira (Olivia Newton-John)

Artwork © 2011 Gene Gonzales

Let me start off by saying I am a fan of Olivia Newton-John. There. I said it. As a matter of fact, my first concert ever was seeing her at the beautiful outdoor Greek Theater in Los Angeles on August 27th 1976. I was 13. England Dan and John Ford Coley ("I'd really love to see you tonight") opened for her. My mom dropped me and my friend off at the Greek, by ourselves and when the show was over, she came and got us. Fighting all that traffic to get back to the Greek had to have been fun. In the pre-decades of cell phones, she just had to guess when the show would end. We almost had a chance at going backstage and meeting Olivia. At a side door, there was a man who was picking random people from the crowd there to come backstage. We weren't picked. Probably jumping up and down waving my hand and my ONJ scrapbook might have discouraged him from picking me. Anyway, it was a very memorable night and it has stayed with me all these years. (Her opening song was "The Air That I Breathe").

Which in a long way brings me around to this piece. See Little John is a fan of Olivia Newton-John as well. Something that came up at HeroesCon I believe. Well, us ONJ fans have to stick together. So John has wanted a piece featuring ONJ in her role as Kira in the musical Xanadu and who better to get it from than another ONJ fan. He selected the cowgirl costume she wears near the end of the film and we were off. Now this was a tough piece to do. There are no good references on the internet. Thankfully NetFlix has the movie and I watched it and made screen shots to get some kind of idea how the outfit works. Bad thing is, all the shots are blurry because she is too busy dancing and not standing still. But I think it worked out.

Thanks Little John, I hope I did Olivia justice. :)

Mixed media on 11" x 17" purple Canson Paper.

This is Post #1547