The Process
James Best Dukes Art is a collaboration between celebrity artist James Best and artist, (and close friend) Scott Romine. For years fans have asked Jimmie about painting “Dukes” oriented art. Painting beautiful landscapes featuring lakes and streams and gorgeous sunsets were more Jimmies cup of tea. So in 2006, Scott Romine, founder of the Confederate General Lee Fan Club asked Jimmie the same old question folks had asked for years, “why don’t you paint some Dukes scenes?” Well (this time) Jimmie’s response was met with this question - “Okay, how about I paint the car and you paint everything else?” - and that, as Paul Harvey would say, is the rest of the story. James Best Dukes Art was born.
The process is fairly straight-forward. Scott scours his collection of General Lee photos (tough job but someone has to do it) and starts with basically a line drawing of the car on a canvas he carefully prepares with a high-quality gesso. The process is
time-consuming, as the “General Lee” is a detailed car - and
fans know every detail we assure you. To be clear, Scott only paints the car (s). Eventually Scott is satisfied enough to move on to step two and ship the painting (which looks remarkably like a General Lee in a snowstorm) to James Best. Once Jimmie has
the painting in hand, the real miracle begins. More often than not these “Impressions of Hazzard” (as we call them) arrive magically out of the mind of James Best - without an immediate visual reference. To date, all of these paintings have been done in a high quality acrylic paint and protected with two different types of high end varnish.
Are you interested in owning a piece of Dukes Art? See our store on this site by clicking here, or inquire about commissioned pieces by email at dorothy@jamesbest.com. Remember, this is without a doubt the most unique and collectible Dukes-oriented item available today. Not everyone can own an original General Lee - perhaps owning original General Lee art by the real Rosco himself is the next best thing!
