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My fifth gouache is a tribute to musical and visual artist Gizelle Smith. The hair was particularly challenging — I don't think I nailed it spectacularly, but I also don't know that I am capable of doing it much better than this now, either.
My third gouache is another singer tribute — this time, to Alanna Quinn-Broadus, vocalist for the band Alanna Royale. I decided on a different approach for this one, because the lighting on my reference pic was very bright. This washed out much of the photo. so that there was very little in the way of forms being modelled by colour and shade. Instead, it was largely flat shapes defined by contour, with a few linear details. But I particularly liked the contours in that pic, which is why I chose it as my reference anyway. So I kept the painting small, forcing me to streamline those details, and emphasized the flat graphic-arts nature of gouache: converting the background to a flat black shape and stylizing the hair, in a manner which I admit makes it rather similar to my cartooning work.
Once again, I didn't manage to nail a photographic likeness, but I think as a graphic work in and of itself, it holds up not too bad.
UPDATE: I also posted this to my Instagram... and received a comment on it from Alanna herself:
Once again, I didn't manage to nail a photographic likeness, but I think as a graphic work in and of itself, it holds up not too bad.
UPDATE: I also posted this to my Instagram... and received a comment on it from Alanna herself:
OH. MY. GOD. i am BEYOND impressed and honored you would pick up a brush with my face in mind. i truly love this. may i share?How swell is that?
tribute to Sasha
Mar. 9th, 2022 04:05 pmI posted earlier about gone-too-young singer Sasha Goodman. I decided to paint a tribute to her as my first foray in gouache. I don't think I captured an accurate likeness [I rarely can] but I feel it's a decent painting in its own right. And I don't think this will be my last gouache -- I enjoyed working with this medium quite a bit.
Having just posted about how down I'm feeling lately, I thought I should share a moment of genuine cheer I experienced just a couple days ago. I was in the car with music on, and this song came on, and I was instantly uplifted -- throughout the song and for a while afterward. What a great track!
No Name Bar by Ikebe Shakedown
Enjoy!
No Name Bar by Ikebe Shakedown
Enjoy!
pause to reflect
Jan. 3rd, 2022 12:57 pmI've been on a retro-soul kick since last fall, getting into obscure-to-me indie bands of this century who are recreating the feel of soul music from the 60s and early 70s. One very recent discovery is Take the Cake by The Getup. Just got it a couple days ago and was listening to it last night. Realized that I quite like their vocalist, looked up her name [Sasha Goodman], found that she had Twitter and Instagram accounts, followed them.
On closer inspection, I realized that she hasn't posted anything for over five years, and wondered what she's been up to. Researched further, and finally learned that she died just over five years ago. Cancer. She was only thirty-six.
Hard to explain why, but I find it a bit stunning, to just discover someone with appealing talent and learn that they are already long gone and we won't be hearing more from them. If this was my first exposure to some rare jazz artist from the forties or somesuch, then learning they were gone would not be such a shock. But this music is only a few years ago, and this artist is clearly young, and I just didn't see this coming. I'm not sure why this matters so much to me today, but somehow it does.
On closer inspection, I realized that she hasn't posted anything for over five years, and wondered what she's been up to. Researched further, and finally learned that she died just over five years ago. Cancer. She was only thirty-six.
Hard to explain why, but I find it a bit stunning, to just discover someone with appealing talent and learn that they are already long gone and we won't be hearing more from them. If this was my first exposure to some rare jazz artist from the forties or somesuch, then learning they were gone would not be such a shock. But this music is only a few years ago, and this artist is clearly young, and I just didn't see this coming. I'm not sure why this matters so much to me today, but somehow it does.
