Original artwork description:

Towards the end of a long inspiring holiday in California in the summer of 2019, I was walking through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, looked up, and saw this sign. The amazing graphic image of the seagull and the stark blue and red design immediately caught my eye, and I took a picture of it. The sign was framed by hills and trees on the edge of the park on a clear summer's day.

It wasn't until I got back home to London that I researched and realised that these signs have a bit of an interesting history behind them.

The scenic drive route was invented for the Golden Gate International Exposition held at Treasure Island in 1939, the famous bridge having only recently been built at the time. The distinctive seagull signs were designed by an artist who won a competition held by SF’s Downtown Association in 1955 and have marked the scenic drive ever since. However there is a history of the signs being stolen as souvenirs and they take a long time to get replaced. Obviously I'm not the only person to have noticed the awesome quirky design of them! So instead of stealing a sign, you can now buy this one-off A3 painting instead.

As well as being inspired by San Francisco itself, the work of David Hockney is another obvious influence on me here, being a pop inspired Englishman who famously painted colourful Californian views.

As with my other paintings, which are often of food, I've aimed for a graphic 'pop' style rather than any sort of classical realism.

The end result is a bright, bold, and colourful image that would brighten up any room in the house.

It was painted in acrylics and Posca pen on thick high quality A3 paper. It is signed on the back.

PLEASE NOTE: the painting doesn't come framed, but I've taken photos of it in a white A3 frame for display purposes.

Size - standard A3
11.69 x 16.54 inches
29.7 cm x 42 cm
Roughly 1mm thick

The painted will be packed in a protective plastic sleeve and rolled up in a strong cardboard tube.

Materials used:

Acrylic Paint, Paper, Paintbrush, Posca pen

Tags:

Featured by our Editors:

• Helen's David Hockney Collection