Audience members attending the Bee Gees tribute band Stayin’ Alive’s show at Savannah Center Thursday night are in for an added bonus. Villages artist Frank Zampardi has created a multi-figured, pencil graphic of the group. The original will remain at the Savannah Center. Each of the vocalists in the group will be presented with a high-quality print.
Zampardi has long admired this tribute group and when he heard they would be back in The Villages, an idea was hatched. He would showcase the group as they appeared on stage, in a “performance on paper.”
“I have seen the band four times. They are an outstanding group with a lot of energy,” said Zampardi. “But a performance is here and then it is gone. I wanted to produce a piece that would be a lasting tribute to the band.”
In the drawing the figures blend and flow together reminiscent of the movements of the band on stage. It was Zampardi’s intention to show on paper the energy and emotion that Stayin’ Alive is known for in their performances. Capturing this energy took hours of exacting work, planning, skillful rendering and attention to detail.
Zampard is a big proponent of planning out your work first, creating a blueprint to follow. It is one of the steps he teaches his students. He currently teaches three classes at the Villages Lifelong Learning College, teaches the Jumpstart Artists, a group he formed. He gives private lessons as well. His first class at the college, was “Drawing with a Purpose in 2007 the same year he move to the Village of Liberty Park
Teaching high school art, coaching basketball, baseball and soccer and raising a family left very little time to do his own work. But since retirement he hasn’t stopped. His work in personalized portraits really took off. He does pencil and color pencil drawings, water colors and oil paintings. He encourages his students to draw from life instead of books.
He also encourages his students not to get blocked by the thing you think you can’t draw.
“In drawing the concepts are the same, whatever you are drawing. If you think you can’t draw a particular body part that is in the head of the artist. A positive attitude will do more to change that than anything.”
Zampardi is known for the intricate details of his work. That is the part he enjoys, the challenge of all the different textures within a drawing. Audience members on Thursday will be fortunate to see one example of this prolific artist’s work.
