Poster Artwork

Guitar and Keyboard Poster Watercolor Art

Bettina Lewis used watercolors to create the guitar and piano illustrations that grace the top sections of the Complete Guitar Chord Poster and the Complete Keyboard Chord Poster. She also used watercolors to paint the 12 horizontal bands of color that form the background of each poster and differentiate each key.

The set of colored bands painted for the Guitar Chord Poster is different from the set painted for the Keyboard Chord Poster. However, the artist arranged the two sets so that their appearance indicates a clear, color-coded visual relationship of keys between the two posters.

Below: The Complete Guitar Chord Poster before typographic overlay: 

 

And after the overlay: 

About the Artist: Bettina Lewis

 

Expressionist artist Bettina Lewis was born in Antwerp, Belgium and raised in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

She began studying art with the Art Students League and New School Art Department in New York City. From there, she moved to Italy, where she studied at Scuola di Porta Romana in Florence.

In 1971, she returned to New York and studied at the Norman Raeben Studio. By 1974 she had found her way to British Columbia, Canada, and earned her BA at Simon Fraser University and fine arts degree at the Emily Carr School of Art, now the Emily Carr University of Art + Design.

She remained in British Columbia, painting, illustrating, and mentoring other artists, until her death in 2005. 

 

On Her Approach to Painting

"Maybe the difference between professional artists and those who dabble is tenacity. I know that buried in me, ready to be uncovered, is a resolution, a resolution that will appear on my canvas. Holding this tension of anticipated resolution is the burden and the joy of a painter. Compared to this, the technical problems of drawing, applying color and paint, and devising composition are easy to overcome.

"Every artist has her own way of doing, of thinking: her own needs, tastes, standards, and temperament. To use an "ism" to group artists can be very deceptive. It can wash down the uniqueness of each individual. But if I am forced, I would not hesitate to attach my art to Expressionism.

"Expressionists are more committed to revealing unexpected emotions than they are concerned with creating precise images. Expressionists utilize streaky brush strokes to bear witness to the vital energy of living. They seek spontaneity not only in painting but also in relation to the imagery that takes form. They try the impossible: to put a bit of life on that which before them has no life. My approach to painting is to allow the images to appear with a minimum of rational planning and self-conscious forethought.

"Whatever people see in my work, they see."

— Bettina Lewis