The Beat acrylic street musician portrait


                                                                          The Beat
                                                                           9"x12"
                                                                          Acrylic
Forgot to say, we made it through the storm and were very fortunate.  Many here in Atlanta lost power due to falling trees.  I guess we were in a less hectic area and got out of the yellow hand sooner so lucky we did not lose power but for a couple of hiccups.  Just 4 inches of rain and some gusty rains.

Here is the third in my street musician series.  I think this is another New Orleans French Quarter performer.  Ok, I might have gone a bit over the edge in this one, but .. you gotta go with the flow.  Originally I was going to have another spread the paint background of greens and blues, then last minute decided since he looked so classy and kind of elegant I wanted to contrast him with some real street graffiti.  Now I am not fluent in street language so I am hoping that I didn't write something really bad here.

Got to admit that I cheated a bit with the strings of the bass.  I put them in with gel pen and then did some color washes over the top of them to kick them back a bit.

Have a couple more of these planned and am definitely having lots o fun with them.  for whatever reason this series has allowed me to just paint, don't think about it, just let the brush do its thing.  Not getting all hung up on technical things, just trying to feel.  This one because of the designs got a bit more tight than I wanted, but plan on loosening back up on the next one.  Got to consciously think of that and not fall back into the detail trap.

Hope you enjoy it and thanks much for taking a look.

Comments

Sheila said…
Good news, so glad for you :) Gel pen, cool idea. Wonderful eyeball, LOL very twilight zone ;) Awesome work :)
Love your street musician series . So glad you weathered the storm well.
hmuxo said…
Your street musician series are really good and hope you keep going...very different and interesting and you paint them so good. And I'm so glad you weren't affected by the storm...very scary! I'm still waiting for good news from my friend who lives in Naples, Fla. hoping she's okay...
This is just wonderful Nelvia! I really like the eye in the background and your musician is great.
Joan Tavolott said…
Just wondering if you listen to music while you paint the musicians. This is great! The musician and the instrument are so well done. I don't consider using a white gel pen for the strings as cheating. I do the same for the rigging on most of the boats I paint. It is almost impossible to save such thin white lines.

Glad to hear that the storms didn't create too much of a problem there.
Janet Bradish said…
Happy to hear you made it through the storm! Gel pen strings - great idea and the graffiti with the classy musician - works so well!

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