Composer Portrait Challenge, Part 1
Learning to draw portraits, one composer at a time. (Weirdo alert!)
I suck at portrait drawing for two main reasons: 1) it's par with rocket science difficulty-wise and 2) I've put exactly three hours of practice into it in my entire life.
Enough! January is my month to go from "is that a person?" to "hey, only the ears and chin are weird!" (Here's week 2.)
How? I'm taking 30 minutes a day to draw a portrait. To make it easy to think of subjects, I'm drawing composers whose piano songs I'm learning, as well as performers I admire. (Like Otis Spann, a Chicago blues pianist.)
My goal is to improve my shading skills and generally work on perspective. I'm looking past my absolutely mediocre skills with optimism thanks to a Skillshare video I watched that said, "you don't discover your talent to draw. You develop it."
Chelsea, always helpful, pointed out that drawing a bunch of dead white guys from past centuries is straight-up odd. Nice to have feedback to keep me from getting too strange, I suppose.
DISREGARDED. I shall soldier on in all my weirdness!
BTW, I know my first one isn't a portrait...I decided to go full formal drawing after the 1st. This isn't an art school dissertation, alright?! Sheesh.
This first round of portraits includes:
Louis Armstrong - I'm learning What a Wonderful World
Ludovico Einaudi - the esteemed/maligned modernist Italian composer. (Learned a bunch of his songs.)
Otis Spann - badass Chicago blues pianist
Franz Liszt - the brilliant 20th century virtuoso and composer (I'm working on his Consolations.)
Martha Argerich - incredibly talented Argentinian pianist.
Lang Lang - the flamboyant Chinese pianist.
John Legend - American singer and songwriter.
Chris Martin - lead singer for Coldplay.
Erik Satie - the very quirky Impressionist/modern French composer.
Yann Tiersen - French composer of the Amelie soundtrack, which has a few songs I'm learning.
Chopin (no first name needed!) - I'm learning a bunch of his preludes and other pieces.