Warren Haynes

For subject matter today, I picked Warren Haynes, guitarist and vocalist with Gov’t Mule and, in the past, the Allman Brothers Band.  I doubt you’ve heard of him but he’s a really talented guitarist: he’ll definitely be in the Rolling Stone top 100.  I picked this pose for a number of reasons.  There’s the opportunity to include hands and a guitar neck: the PAOTY judges like hands and I like guitar necks.  There are the lighting effects in the source photo, with Warren’s hair lit up in green on one side and orange on the other.  And there’s the pose/gesture: he’s 100% immersed in the music.

I started as usual by putting down a pencil outline, cheating by using a 5×7 grid of squares.  I say cheating but there seem to be so many books out there suggesting to coloured pencil artists that they should use tracing paper or light boxes.  I’m nowhere near the extreme tail of the cheating spectrum.  Anyway, after the drawing was down and the grid rubbed out, there was what’s fast becoming an important second step.  This is where I take a pointy tool and mark out white lines that I want to reserve on the paper.  Today I marked out the guitar strings, the frets and a few individual hairs around the extremes of Warren’s mop.

And then I added all the colour.  The usual story.  Multiple layers of colour, soft pressure whenever I remembered and tending to move all over the paper rather than finishing shapes one at a time.  I managed to complete the painting in a single session.  It took me five hours, which bodes well for PAOTY where I could work through the lunch hour as well as using my four allocated hours.  Or I could leave out the background or simplify my colour scheme, as I did for David Suchet.  Anyway, after all the colours were on I burnished all the flesh areas and smoothed over the rest.  And that was me done.

And how was the end result?  Well, I’ve not got a likeness of Warren, but I do think I’ve nailed the tone of his guitar.  It’s there in the gesture and the chunky forearm.  And the marks I made for hairs, guitar strings and frets all did their job and add a certain something.  Finally, I know I keep talking about this Seawhites Of Brighton paper but just look at those halos around the big shapes, especially those around Warren’s hair.  They’re not something I added consciously: I think it’s something this paper makes me do.  Anyway, matching the guitar tone isn’t enough: without achieving a likeness, this painting isn’t going in the shop window.

For a better likeness of Warren, check out The Allman Brothers Band: Warren’s third from the right.