PAINTED VIOLIN PROJECT: Black Hills Edition

Meet the Artists

Make It

Call for Artists!

Deadline: Rolling

The Painted Violin Project

The Rushmore Music Festival invites twelve Black Hills Area visual artists for a collaboration that brings together the visual and performing arts on the First Annual “Painted Violin Project: Black Hills Edition.”

The “Painted Violin Project” is a unique fundraising effort to support full-tuition scholarships for talented middle and high school-aged music students nationwide to attend the Rushmore Music Festival, a residential solo and chamber music camp in Rapid City. This project invites visual artists to work with a unique medium, a violin, in a forum that both promotes their work and helps young musicians achieve their artistic goals. This project and the selected collaborative artists will be announced at the Oktoberfest Celebration benefit concert on October 28th in conjunction with our upcoming 10th Anniversary season.

 About Us: The Rushmore Music Festival is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Rapid City, South Dakota. The Festival annually hosts up to 40 students from around the country and up to 10 faculty from around the world for a 6-week intensive summer program. Attracting extremely dedicated, advanced string and piano students, each applicant undergoes a rigorous video audition process and interview to determine eligibility. Upon strictly merit-based acceptance, every student is awarded a full-tuition fellowship to attend the Rushmore Music Festival. This fellowship ensures that all deserving students, regardless of their family’s financial circumstances, have the opportunity to train with world-renowned faculty in a conservatory environment. Our Festival student alumni have been accepted for college at institutions including The Juilliard School, New England Conservatory, Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Harvard, Yale, Oberlin, and Cornell.

 As an organization founded and run by musicians entirely on a volunteer basis with zero administrative salaries, the Rushmore Music Festival deeply understands and values the artists’ time and effort that will go into this project. To show our sincerest appreciation for our artists, we will make it our mission to ensure that your work is showcased and recognized by a sophisticated national audience.

Project Guidelines

  1. Medium: Acrylics, applied materials, oils, decoupage, etc. are acceptable. Keep in mind the drying time for the selected medium. The violins will be showcased from February - October 2024.

  2. Restrictions: This fundraiser is a project for a youth-oriented organization. As this project is intended to celebrate the beauty between art and music, no art should include nudity, profanity, political messaging, or suggestive violence.

  3. Design: The violin should retain its original dimensions so that it will fit into a standard violin case. Added features should be kept to a minimum. Artists should consider retaining the “feel” of the original violin and use elements such as re-stringing as part of the design.

The painted violins of selected artists will be:

  •  Exhibited locally throughout the Black Hills Area and across South Dakota at galleries, events, and various businesses

  • Professionally photographed and made into prints, calendars, and more, which will be sold on our website during the 2023/2024 fundraising season

  • Featured in multiple Festival advertising and marketing campaigns, such as our summer concert program booklets

  • Filmed during the creation process, with an opportunity for the artist to discuss their work for the artist’s and the Festival’s social media and web promotion that is targeted at an audience that supports the musical and visual arts

  • Featured with other “Painted Violin Project” artists in a private event (date & location TBD) where the artists can invite their own patrons, discuss their painted violin, and display and promote their other work for sale

  • Displayed for the duration of the Festival’s 10th Anniversary Season for various private events held at the Festival grounds

  • Used in Festival’s benefit raffle and silent auctions to conclude the fundraising effort

 All selected “Painted Violin Project” artists will be notified before October 20th and receive complimentary tickets to the Musical Oktoberfest benefit concert on October 28th in Rapid City. Artists will also be invited to participate in other events throughout the season.

Artist Tip Sheet for Painted Violins

  1. Violins are made of relatively thin wood, and their various parts are held together with relatively weak glue known as hide glue. The tops are spruce, and the backs, sides, necks, and scrolls are maple, all varnished. The fingerboards are smooth but unfinished ebony.

  2. Violins are finished with a variety of different varnishes. Better instruments have oil-based or spirit-based varnish, but less expensive student instruments often have plastic finishes like polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer (which is more like paint than varnish).

  3. If the hide glue that holds the instrument together becomes heated or damp its bond can be broken.

  4. Regardless of the type of varnish used, best results are obtained by roughing up the varnished surfaces with sandpaper or steel wool so that the paint has a “tooth” to stick to.

  5. Best results are obtained using oils or acrylic paint. Watercolors are not a good choice because of the high water content.

  6. If your instrument has a crack in the top (some of them do), you may stabilize it with wood putty or other filler of your choice so that you can have a smooth surface to work with.

  7. The bridge, strings, tailpiece, and chin rest may be removed from your violin to allow better access to the painting surfaces. They may be re-attached or you can leave them out of the design. If you need assistance, please reach out to either Brett Walfish or Katie Smirnova.

  8. If the sound post falls down, don’t worry about it. While this is necessary to play the violin, the painted violins are aesthetic works of art that are not meant to be played.

  9. If you use turpentine to thin your paints, be aware that turpentine is used as a thinner and remover for many types of violin varnish. It would be a good idea to establish a background coat of some type before using anything incorporating turpentine.

  10. It would be a good idea to complete your work with a clear coat of artist-grade varnish to protect the paint. Remember, unlike a painting, the violins are likely to be handled by their new owners (the high bidders and raffle winners) and by admirers!

Project Guidelines

  1. Medium: Acrylics, applied materials, oils, decoupage, etc. are acceptable. Keep in mind the drying time for the selected medium. The violins will be showcased from February - October 2024.

  2. Restrictions: This fundraiser is a project for a youth-oriented organization. As this project is intended to celebrate the beauty between art and music, no art should include nudity, profanity, political messaging, or suggestive violence.

  3. Design: The violin should retain its original dimensions so that it will fit into a standard violin case. Added features should be kept to a minimum. Artists should consider retaining the “feel” of the original violin and use elements such as re-stringing as part of the design.

Artist Tip Sheet for Painted Violins

  1. Violins are made of relatively thin wood, and their various parts are held together with relatively weak glue known as hide glue. The tops are spruce, and the backs, sides, necks, and scrolls are maple, all varnished. The fingerboards are smooth but unfinished ebony.

  2. Violins are finished with a variety of different varnishes. Better instruments have oil-based or spirit-based varnish, but less expensive student instruments often have plastic finishes like polyurethane or nitrocellulose lacquer (which is more like paint than varnish).

  3. If the hide glue that holds the instrument together becomes heated or damp its bond can be broken.

  4. Regardless of the type of varnish used, best results are obtained by roughing up the varnished surfaces with sandpaper or steel wool so that the paint has a “tooth” to stick to.

  5. Best results are obtained using oils or acrylic paint. Watercolors are not a good choice because of the high water content.

  6. If your instrument has a crack in the top (some of them do), you may stabilize it with wood putty or other filler of your choice so that you can have a smooth surface to work with.

  7. The bridge, strings, tailpiece, and chin rest may be removed from your violin to allow better access to the painting surfaces. They may be re-attached or you can leave them out of the design. If you need assistance, please reach out to either Brett Walfish or Katie Smirnova.

  8. If the sound post falls down, don’t worry about it. While this is necessary to play the violin, the painted violins are aesthetic works of art that are not meant to be played.

  9. If you use turpentine to thin your paints, be aware that turpentine is used as a thinner and remover for many types of violin varnish. It would be a good idea to establish a background coat of some type before using anything incorporating turpentine.

  10. It would be a good idea to complete your work with a clear coat of artist-grade varnish to protect the paint. Remember, unlike a painting, the violins are likely to be handled by their new owners (the high bidders and raffle winners) and by admirers!