Chris Robinson

To start things off, I put down a pencil outline with a grid and scratched in a few hairs with a pointy stick.

For the background, I just laid on my usual black with laters of delft blue, dark pthalo green, dark red and helix blue reddish, then a second layer of each in the same order.  After that, I added a layer of mixed reds, yellows and oranges, then one more layer each of one of the blues and dark red.  At this point the tooth of the paper was starting to feel full, so I moved on to Chris and his clothes.  I used similar colours in the microphone and stand.

And for Chris and his clothes I just used whichever colours either I could see in my source photo or which just felt good.  Don’t ask me to remember which : I just played fast and loose.  I’m wondering whether I should have stopped earlier before going overboard with colours.  Here’s what I had at one point before releasing the handbrake:

Chris was wearing a white hat, shirt and jacket in the source photo and I think I’ve caught that here.  Whether the multicoloured tapestry of sound that I ended up with is an improvement on this or a worsening I don’t know.  I expect different people will have different opinions.

The likeness wasn’t quite right and still isn’t.  I did try tinkering, searching for a likeness.  One thing in particular I remember doing was trying to raise Chris’ right eyebrow higher.  I’m not sure this really worked: you can see a shadow above the eye where the brow was before.  There’s also a line under the eye that’s a bit too sharp for my liking.

After tinkering came the burnishing stage.  The black background was just flattened with a paper stump while everything else was burnished with the white pencil in an attempt to tone down the impressionistic colours.  And then that was me done.

So the likeness isn’t quite right.  OK.  I must have captured something, though, as I can see his brother Rich Robinson in places.  I’ve mentioned the impressionistic colours and that they might be a good or a bad thing.  But let¡s put all that to one side and talk about what’s good here.  And that’s the initial drawing: the hand and the angle of the head both came out well.  And both of these contribute to the feeling in the final painting, which I think is its best attribute.  This one’s full of emotion.  Chris is somehow both in control of the audience and showing humility to some greater being out there.  Or maybe he’s just completely into the moment and the music.  Or am I just saying that I’ve caught his aura?

On balance, I do like this one.  It’s up for sale.