I'm Just Playing in the Band

So, I have finally finished another commission.  This one another band of instruments.  A bit more aggressive, you might say, than the last.  But in my mind, soooooooo much better.    I should take a moment to point out that this is actually the third one of these I did for this commission.  The first two...... well, let's not mention the first two.

Yes, this picture gets a little grey at the bottom.  I blame my iPhone for that.  It never has taken great pictures.  And this is with the flash on, from about 2 feet away.


Ok, here is the first picture.  This is my initial drawing, you can see how I arranged the instruments.

 This is all I got done before I had to stop and take a quick break.  You can see the instruments getting a little bit of color.

Here, I was able to put finish a first coat of color on all the instruments.  I've also gone back to do some shading on the classical guitar and the stand up bass.

A bit more color on the instruments and i'll have them all but done, then it will be on to the fun part.  







And finally the fun part.   It really gives the painting a lot of motion.  I think it looks great.  My son took a quick peak at it and gave me a review, "Too much splatter dad, you need to take some off. "  I probably ought to listen to him.  Though he has only been painting a short time, because he is only 6, he's much better at adding splatter to paintings than I am.  Many a Saturday morning we will paint and then he will "add some splat" to his painting, and voila, what was an ordinary painting, turns into something looking pretty good.

Well, I like the splatter, I think it adds a lot to the painting.  My intent was to make "splats" of different sizes to represent music being played by the instruments.  I don't know if i quite got that, but I still do like the painting.  Let me know what you think.

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.

Guy With Guitar (perspective)

Today we are going a completely different direction from tomatoes.  This is obviously a guy playing guitar, but I wanted to work on both drawing hands and on perspective.  When I stumbled upon this picture, I couldn't resist.

I really wish that the picture wasn't all blue and grey.  maybe I should repaint and use a red shirt or something.  Despite the way the left hand looks, I'm really proud of bing able to draw the hands as well as I did.  I think the main problem with the hand is not that it isn't drawn well, bu that the paint looks a little odd.  If you look at the hand again, you will see the fingers are formed well and in proportion.  Its just a little running I got from the pain that makes it look a little odd.

The left shoulder is supposed to be way in front of the right one.  I definately think I got the size of his arms right, but there is something not right about the way it looks.  It looks like this guy is sitting square to the viewer.  Well, I'll just keep at it, and I'll get it some day.

I tried hard to leave extra white in this picture.  I could easily have made his shirt a solid color, and it might have worked out ok.  But leaving the white gives a sense of highlights.

I am toying with the idea of putting guitar strings on this,  what do you think?