Derek Trucks

Anyway, on to the painting.  I picked out this pose because when Derek goes off on one he closes his eyes and hunches over.  I’ve no doubt that the photographer caught him here at the high point of the concert.  I’m also a bit of a sucker for black backgrounds when. It comes to coloured pencil pirtraits.

Preparation first.  I put down a pencil drawing using a grid, as per usual.  And, before reaching for the pencils, I scraped in some lines with the pointy tool: some random hairs on the head and in the beard and some guitar strings using a ruler.  Then I was ready to start.

Unlike with watercolour paintings, I don’t just work from the background forwards with coloured pencils.  I decided today to pick out the black background, the main body of the guitar and the wooden panel as the three shapes that I’d work on first.  Each of these shapes has loads of different colours in it, far to many for me to remember.  And rather than do each shape one at a time. I’d do one or two layers in one shape before moving in to another, so they were built up in parallel.  Now, here’s the interesting bit.  Every time I used a colour I’d also incorporate it into Derek’s hair, face, leather shirt or hands or into the guy out on the right.  Background guy didn’t come out brilliantly but Derek and his jacket just emerged gradually.  By the rime I was happy with my three starting shapes I has a brilliant likeness of Derek and an interesting multicoloured shirt.

The shirt was maybe slightly too multicoloured so I went over it with thin layers of red, blue and green to turn it black.  And I used sepia and indigo to go over some of the shadowy shapes and make stretches were still there.

And then we were onto finishing touches.  There were background shapes and little bits on the guitar to add some colour to.  These were pretty straightforward.  Then I tinkered a little with Derek’s face, hair and hands.  And then it was all about smoothing and blending.  I used a paper stump for Derek’s face and shirt and for the background but otherwise burnished everything in white.  And that was me done.

I’m happy with this.  The face with its likeness and with all those colours in the hairdos off the charts.  The left hand I guess could be better and I could have left out background guy and the wooden panel but, you know, this is a portrait.  That face makes this a big success.  Derek’s up for sale.