Sax Player – Stage 2

Sax Player 3

Still in progress. I'm not sure I love where the hair is going yet.

Here is the second installment of my progress on this painting (see the first). I’ve begun to add a fiery background to represent the way music seems to flow. I’ve defined the face on the right that I discovered lurking in the image when I first penciled it onto the canvas. One of my favorite parts of art — seeing not only what is there, but what might be there.

I thought the hair on the musician was a little too formal and not really in line with my painting style, so I’ve played with that a little. More work to come on that though, He reminds me a little of Larry King right now (am I allowed to say that?).

I laid in some lights and darks for the musicians clothing and I like the way the legs are looking at the bottom — they seem to be at once both lluminated and shadowed by the music. The darks in the clothing is a mixture of Ultramarine Blue and Payne’s Gray.

It occurred to me that I might try to make the face on the right appear to be breathing in and/or out the music. A nice little challenge, and as of this writing, I feel up to task, but we’ll see what happens when I pick up the brush. More to come.