At one point I was called about doing a poster for the Hampton Jazz Fest. At first I was super excited about doing the piece. I was going to be illustrating several jazz greats on one piece. Then reality set in. Keep in mind this was during the days when you couldn't just punch up Google and find 500 pictures of the coliseum at night. For one, I had never been there and the art director sent me a black and white xerox of the place during the day. I wasn't extremely happy with it, but then a change came in. We had to replace the previous trumpeter with Chet Atkins. I can't really remember the reasoning, but it had to be done. Again, no problem current day, but this was paint on board. I ended up taking the top layer of a Strathmore Illustration board and illustrating Chet Atkins' face. I then cut it out and placed it on the painting. Well enough to fix it for reproduction purposes. Years later after I started working on the computer, I decided to pull it in and rough up how I thought it should have been. Of course, then I was able to find reference online. That made a huge difference. The original piece is on the top and the reworked piece is on the bottom. Even now, I still have mixed feelings about it and have the urge to keep tinkering with it.
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