Having finished the series of rock'n'roll portraits (see previous blog entries) and having greatly enjoyed drawing them, I made vague plans to do another set. So I sat down with pen and paper and drew up lists of musical heroes and heroines that I wanted to draw. Possible candidates for future series included artists on Tamla Motown (I know, I know, they were two different labels), British bands of the 60s, Atlantic Soul, and Jazz Legends*. The 'Atlantic' set won it — I think I must have been listening to a lot of soul music at the time, but then I always do — and I ploughed ahead with a new batch of illustrations.
I'd drawn maybe half a dozen portraits when a big hungry freelance job came in which sat down to eat sometime in June, consumed July, gobbled up August and polished off the beginning of September for dessert. Before I knew it, a new term had started at college, I was doing much more teaching than I had been previously and the Atlantic series was all but abandoned.
Perhaps this was a good thing. This evening, I've been looking at the fruit(s) of my labours from the start of summer and I realise that some of the images simply aren't up to scratch. So tonight, I've been sorting out the wheat from the chaff, cleaning up hastily scanned artwork, colouring and recolouring some illustrations and discarding others completely.
I've finished four illustrations so far and will post one a day for the next four days. So, enough waffle. Here's Ray Charles...
*I know very little about Jazz if I'm honest. I've tried to 'educate myself' over the summer by buying lots of cheap CDs from the Blue Note back catalogue but I'm still undecided about the merits of this particular art form. I genuinely enjoy some of it (Cannonball Adderly's 'Somethin' Else' and 'GO!' by Dexter Gordon are particularly good) but at times, it can sound like so many angry wasps attacking each other with brass instruments.
3 comments:
Re the jazz, I share the opinion of Miss Swinburne, Barbara Flynn's character in Alan Plater's Beiderbecke TV series, i.e. there are three types of jazz: HOT, coooool and "when does the tune start?"
Nice drawing, mister. Look forward to the rest.
Not just "when does the tune start?" but also, "when does the atonal, apparently random noodling stop?" and "are you aware of the concept of melody?" Some of the stuff I've heard is just DREADFUL, self-indulgent toss.
Thanks for the kind words, Mr S. Have been greatly enjoying what's been happening recently over 'at your place'. For my mind, you can never have enough drawings of bears in rowing boats. Keep up the good work.
I'll see what I can do.
Yes, can't be doing with the more "difficult" end of jazz. John Coltrane runs the gamut, in my very limited experience. At one end brilliant, tuneful, sensuous music, at the other what sounds like a baboon with a saxophone being worried by a bee.
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