In two weeks we will be halfway through this year of art, and although I haven't done every assignment, so far the investment in this class has been worth it, both for introducing me to new ideas and for simply keeping me painting.
This week's class was with a woman who is both artist and musician, and her painting was of she and her partner holding their guitars. I didn't want to paint the identical picture, so I decided to find a photo of a musician who spoke to me somehow, and went searching through unsplash.com, a great online resource for copyright-free photos provided as reference.
I found this fellow, sitting on a bench in an unnamed city playing his saxophone, and was drawn to his pose, his setting, and the expression on his face, which it proved almost impossible to duplicate here in this small format. But I did my best, and considering that I know almost nothing about the basic structure of a saxophone, I think I at least did the idea of it justice as well.
I had hoped that this would be a bit looser and more evocative, but that's just not my style, no matter how much I may wish. I was pretty happy with the way the figure came out; less happy with the bench and tree, both of which I gave too much prominence for background objects. I didn't even try to include the building full of windows on the other side of the street—I know my limits. Someday, with practice, I will learn how to back things off properly so that I can balance the foreground and background.
"Sax Player"—pencil, Paul Jackson watercolors, on Fluid 140-lb. coldpress watercolor paper, 9x12.
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