The Afterath....

Here's a lunchtime sketch, based off of a theme I did for a commission a few years back. What I prefer about this one is that there is more story suggested in the gesture than the original idea. I wanted him to appear as if he had survived a terrible battle and though I haven't sketched in the surrounding death and chaos his gesture suggests extreme sadness and weariness.

But in the midst of all this a butterfly lands on his finger...life will go on and the realm, though dealt a horrendous blow will emerge victorious. And this old soldier will carry on...

I may carry this through to more completion complete with a background... We'll see, I've got several things projects to hammer out yet...! Stay tuned!

Thorncreek Winery

For those who don't know, I have a jazz trio Intransit, that performs regularly. Lately i've been taking my sketchbook to draw on breaks— i'm leaving the mingling to the other fellas. Anyways this sketch was done on site while ducking this lady's rather large gentleman friend...

I added color on lunch today (I need some practice with watercolor...but that's what sketchbooks are for, right?)

intransitjazz.com

The Way UP!

Few musicians in any strand of music can truly be called artists. Fewer still are truly triple threat composer/technician/performers. Pat Metheny is one such musician. He appears on the Mt. Rushmore of jazz guitarists of the last 35 years. And truly he is a joy to much— my toddler has been watching and listening to him since she was 6 months old and can actually identify his playing on CDs...

I myself have found myself pilfering a riff or two of his while soloing on bass...and I very quickly feel embarrassed for attempting such master class musicianship when I'm so decidedly not in his stratosphere...

Anyways this sketch was done on lunch while listening to his CD "The Way Up"....I once had a friend of mine say, " You know why every picture of Pat has him smiling? because he's the best @$!*!! guitar player on the planet!" I'd say he's simply one of the greatest artists on the planet. Period.

Seeing is Believing!

Back to basics again, this time with some sketches from the sketchbook this week. I've been heeding the words of Stephen Silver and investing time in gesture work and doing memory gesture work. I've also been reading quite a bit of Walt Stanchfield's book...

The first two pages are one minute gestures with about 10-15 seconds of observation before people moved. The next two pages are memory gestures where I studied to "see" the people and mentally recorded their actions over the course of one to two minutes. I then came back away from them and sketched my impressions of them. These are one to two minute gestures, as well. I stylized them based on my impression of their shapes...I like the memory exercise alot!