Dave Barnes

Because (i) I was feeling a bit tired after yesterday’s efforts, and (ii) I came back from my morning walk without a painting and plan in mind, it made sense to only do a quick painting today. I only did an Inktense figure three days go, so went for another of my tried and tested quick fixes: a portrait in crystalline watercolour. This is Dave Barnes, guitarist in Bywater Call. They’re a band from Toronto who describe themselves as a Southern soul roots rock outfit. I’ve seen them in concert twice, once last year in Sittingbourne and again eight days go in Faversham. They’re amazingly talented and I feel privileged to have seen them in such tiny, intimate venues.

Check them out on YouTube. If they sound like your sort of thing, their best album IMHO is Shepherd, available on Amazon UK here. As an Amazon associate, I earn commission from qualifying purchases but this costs absolutely nothing extra to you.

Anyway, I followed my usual process, which was to:

• create a three value plan using the Notanizer app
• get down pencil outlines using a grid
• mask out all the highlights and spatter some masking fluid on the background
• sprinkle crystals over the darks; today I used quinacrinone magenta, poppy red, orange, buttercup, leaf green, pthalo blue (green shade) and royal blue
• wet the crystals in the dark area, trying to allow colours to merge together naturally
• sprinkle crystals (the same colours) over the medium tones
• spray the crystals generously with water then lay kitchen paper over everything and hold it down to soak up all the water
• remove the kitchen paper and making fluid and check out results

Today most of the darks came out in green and blue, although a few browns appeared in the guitar neck. But the mid tones came out yellow. I’m not complaining, merely observing. The likeness wasn’t quite there, though, with the neck looking a bit long. What I did was to tinker by painting some dirty water on Dave’s neck, just below the back of his jaw. It suggested a boundary between the jaw and the neck and helped improve the likeness. And that was me done.

It’s not my best ever painting but not my worst either. The crystals add energy to the painting and this feels appropriate to the subject. And I do like Dave’s left hand in the bottom right of the painting, perfectly suggested by the white highlights. This one’s up for sale, with the price to be found here.