The Eagle Has Landed
This is a fun commission I did for a musician, Joey Hastings, who loves all things EAGLE. He asked if I could do one of my paintings with an eagle as a musician, specifically playing the blues on his harmonica. Joey plays the harmonica and other instruments in the band Front Porch Blues out of FL. He was very excited about getting his portrait. It's always fun to see what people come up with for ideas for paintings. I loved every minute of it.
First, I had to do some in depth reference sketching to get the feel of the eagle just right.
Like my dad always says, you've got to know what's going on under those feathers and fur to get it right. To be able to fool around with it when you want to put it in an unusual, believable pose.
I can see Joey's love of these birds. They are fantastic. So majestic and full of character. Their feet and legs are HUGE bundles of muscle. The strength they have is tremendous. It was fun to make Joey an eagle, playing his harmonica …
. . complete with high-top chucks and his favorite hat!
Next I had to configure instruments into the setting for his jamming self. I did this part of the layout digitally, on my iPad. It makes it easy to draw and re-draw, scale and move elements of the painting to make it work on the size paper I have chosen.
Once I had the layout done, I was ready to move to my watercolor paper and paints.
I did this digital color sketch before I began the painting... just messing around with colors.
Here's the finished 15x22" watercolor painting. I had a ton of fun doing this. Now I just have to make the time, and the world has to open up so we can go to Florida and see The Front Porch Blues band in person!
→ More on Joey and the Front Porch Blues band here
