March Madness NCAA Tournament Art

NCAA March Madness Basketball

The drama of the dunk shot is a perfect subject matter for a basketball painting.  I have painted this image of a basketball dunk shot a number of times for a variety of clients.  This is a new one painted pretty recently - probably because, at the time, of the upcoming interest in the NCAA March Madness . The client was aware that I am duplicating the painting from a previous painting and realize each version is unique.   I am in the photo so you can get a sense of the size of the painting.  The original dunk shot painting, or I should say paintings were painted for an NBA Basketball commercial for Fox Sports Net   They own the originals and the art was painted in a different color scheme.

The Dunk Shot   

With the NCAA March Madness basketball tournament being played it seemed in keeping to post this photograph of my basketball art.  Seeing a dunk shot is the one play everybody likes to watch particularly if the dunk is coming from a basketball player taking off in flight somewhere north of the free throw line.  We love the aerobatics of the player flying through the air with his hand on the ball as he is about to drop the bomb through the net for a score. The beauty, the grace and the violence of the ball slamming through the net gives us great satisfaction

The painting is approximately 48” x 60” acrylic on unstretched canvas. And I do work on commissions if you have a specific sports selfie or photograph you would like painted.

Basketball Art Dunk Shot Painting

The Dunk Shot

The dunk shot is a good reason we go to basketball games.  It’s the same reason some go to the ballet.  We want to see the basketball player fly.  We are not as much interested in seeing the ground game with a guy dribble a ball down the court.  What we want to see the spectacular leaps and bounds, the jumps (Superman flying, the sun coming up over the horizon), the amazing ability to defy gravity. That’s what we want to see - the dunk shot.

And we want to see it done with a basketball in the basketball player’s hands. We love “the air game” with the basketball grasped in the hand of a player reaching above the rim for the dunk. 

We want to see the basketball player takeoff from the baseline and the long soaring  outreach of the hand with a grip on the ball and to hear the swish of the net.  That is what we want to see.

And in this basketball painting of a hand about to dunk a basketball I am trying to capture that feeling of what it is like to watch a high flying bomber about to smash a basketball through the net.

The basketball art is 60” by 84” acrylic on unstretched canvas.  This means there are no stretcher bars or frame.  It is meant to hang like a  tapestry or banner.  Available for sale.

Abstract Basketball Painting with Hoop and Basketball

Basketball Painting In Abstract Style

A few years ago I was approached by a sports art agent to do some paintings for the (at the time) a new Amway sports arena in Orlando, Florida - where the NBA Orlando Magic plays basketball. The paintings were to be used on the walls and in spaces for the arena.  I don't recall how many paintings

I did for them but I do remember a couple of them were basketball related and this contemporary basketball hoop painting was among the different paintings.

This abstract painting of the basketball hoop is good size: sixty inches by seventy-two inches  (five feet by six feet) acrylic on unstretched canvas.  What I was asked to paint was something bright and colorful and represented basketball in an abstract way.  A couple of the other paintings I did for them were basketball paintings of Venice Beach street players I had photograph at Venice, Ca.  This is where the great basketball  movie "White Men Can't Jump" was filmed and in our neighborhood.  (These paintings are posted somewhere on this blog)

Basketball Idea from Alley

At the time I had not done many non-figurative paintings so it was a bit of a challenge for me.  I wasn't really sure where to start.  But one evening my wife and I were walking the alleys of Venice.  We always liked seeing the backs of the rundown properties and the deterioration of the neighborhood.  There is something very human seeing old garages and backs of old cottages.  My wife actually owned a small cottage that was held up by the wings of termites.   As we walked in the alleys I kept seeing old, rusted and unused basketball hoops attached to dilapidated garages.  And growing over some of the garages were vines and flowers.  One in particular captured my imagination - a garage with Nasturtiums (yellow orange flowers on long green vines) draped through the hoop and over the garage doors.  Perfect.

I took a bunch of photographs from a variety of angles for reference material.  Back in my studio I painted the scene in a realistic manner, recreating the alley and garages and trash cans and the hoop and the flowers.  And then I took a big brush and slashed paint all over the canvas.  And what you see is the result of my effort - a contemporary, modern sort of basketball hoop abstract painting.