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Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow A Disney Artist's Rock-n-Roll Past  He could hear him up there, pacing back and forth. Clomp, clomp, clomp. Clomp clomp, clomp. The sound of the footsteps on the hardwood floor reverberated through the art studio below. Clomp, clomp clomp. Clomp clomp clomp. This went on for hours, which unfortunately was much longer than David Willardson had told Ritchie Blackmore it would take to complete the painting of the guitarist's first post-Deep Purple album cover, Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow. Willardson, who has painted over 150 album covers in his 40+ year career, chuckled during our phone conversation when he recalled working on the Rainbow cover. "In 1975 I had a beautiful English Tudor home in the Hollywood hills. It was three stories and had hardwood floors. I had put a studio on the lower floor, and the living room was directly upstairs. I didn't like the musicians to watch me or bother me while I was painting, but Blackmore just showed up one day, and I wasn't done yet," he recalled. According to Willardson, Blackmore was "in full regalia" that day complete with high-platform shoes. He told the musician that it would probably be another half hour before the cover was finished, and that he could wait upstairs. That's when the pacing began. "Unfortunately, I was terrible at estimating how long it would take to create a painting. It ended up being 3-4 hours," Willardson said. "He was very nice, but that was probably the most pressure I'd been under. He'd seen a sketch of the concept, but the best part happens during the last 10 percent of the painting. I always wanted the artists to see the paintings when they were at their best." Of course, Willardson did complete the airbrush painting of that now-iconic castle and rainbow, and the guitarist left satisfied.  |