Perlman

Itzhak Perlman, the father of all virtuosos of the violin in the classical world. White charcoal on black paper. This is just another way of consumating my practice of white charcoal against black surface. I'm trying push this skill to where it will take me. Artist Zimou Tan is inspiring me.

Jobim

Carlos Jobim, Brazillian songwriter, composer, arranger, singer, and instrumentalist. He created the Bosa Nova style of music. If you're not familiar of this genre of music and rythm try "Girl from Ipanema. 

I got the idea of doing the portrait of Jobim from a Japanese Instagram friend/follower #marsalu.  White charcoal on black paper.

Bell

Joshua Bell, violin virtuoso. White charcoal on black paper. Slowly I am getting a hang of this white charcoal on black surface. At first I was spinning my head on how to approach this going reverse mentally with white charcoal instead of black. I copied this from a colored photo which makes it a little challenging. I did a bit of adjustment  also with the left hand taking it closer to the face so I could include it in the composition. It looked a bit odd being too close; I know this because I play violin myself.  Anyway, I had fun doing this.

I included some stages of the process to show how I tackled them to come up with the finished work.

Pucinni

Giacomo Pucinni, Italian operatic composer of the late 19th century. Known for his operas like La Boheme, Tosca, and Madame Butterfly. White charcoal on black medium paper.

Showing below are the stages of how the process was done.

Fritz Kreisler

White charcoal on black medium paper.  Mr. Kreisler is an Austrian-born Anerican violinist who manifested his extraordinary talent at the age of 4.  By 7 he was already at the Vienna Conservatory of Music.  He surrounded himself with people of big stature in music and benefited so much from them.  Awards and accolades came out easy for his genius talent, and toured Europe and US 
almost instantly.  Then he got bored, decided to be a doctor of Medicine. When he came back to music he was welcomed and even came out bigger with his natural gift in music. 

He was known for his immortal compositions like Caprice Viennoise, Tambourin Chinoise, Schon Rosmarin, and Leibesfreud. In other words, in our modern street lingo, we say, the guy is a natural born cool dude.

Claude Debussy

Charcoal. Juggling between straight portrait and caricature throws off my skills that I tend to slack more on working the likeness of my portrait. I haven't even mastered that part yet. I decided to delay posting it instead and thought it hard of what else am I missing here. In caricature it's more loose and forgiving. 

Another retouched- George Lopez

Funny man George is always amusingly hilarious exposing the funny things Mexicans do and being proud to be one of them. Love the authenticity of the man.

Retouched old posts

I decided to retouch some of my old posts smoothening and defining more of the lights and darks. I am glad and proud of the results that it made a huge difference. I am actually getting them ready for frames and for a fundraising for my mother's trip to Vienna where she would put up a show of her own works. Yes, she's also an artist and I got my genetic talent in art from her.