Cool Jazz

SOLD!

Ok, so... I am trying to stretch my boundaries.  I've a friend that asked me to paint a picture of a drum kit for him.  He is a drummer and has a small band that plays together.  Well, I didn't want to just paint a plain old drum kit with nothing interesting going on around it.

At first I thought I should add some instruments to the drum kit.  Make a band out of it.  So, looking for some picture from which to draw inspiration, I got a number of instruments to draw, figured a place to put them on the paper, and began drawing.    You can see the original sketch to the left.  I actually thought it looked pretty good.  Drum kit mostly in the middle, instruments in front a bit larger, instruments in back a bit smaller.  Got it all good.

Well, I thought I would try to change from the really stiff painting I normally do to a much looser form.  I wet the paper and set about working.  It's difficult because if the paper is too wet, you just get sloppy colors, and if it is too dry, they don't bleed together.  Well, I tried for a blue background in the center and some red coloring as you moved toward the edge.  Then to color the instruments.  I wanted to paint them while the paper was still wet if I could (mind you I'm working furiously to do this), because I though some bleed out of the lines might look cool too.  Well, I got some, and some I didn't  The second layer of color on the instruments really brought them off the page just as I hoped.  The splatter is there to provide some interest in the painting (maybe i missed my mark on that?).

But I'm happy with this.  I'll definitely keep trying to perfect this technique.