My first iPad painting: Jazzgasm

Here is the famous original photo:

Interesting how the colour makes the musician far more the centre of things....love the colours you used for him.

Fascinating picture of musical ecstasy.

I like everything about it, Robert. Considering your output, I'd rate it excellent.

Any chance you were drawn to that picture because the guy in the center looks so much like your avatar?

Yeah, I was going for his color infecting the others but am not great with color yet. One thing I do understand is that the warm color on top of cool really helps it appear in front of it.

Anyway, one day I will go over Big Jay again, and do it with more detail, I rushed that a bit as it was the last part, and I didn't do his head and sax with near enough detail (like his hair and the drops of sweat on his forehead are missing).

I drew myself into the picture to watermark it, the original is missing that guy.

Edit: I think we are talking about different guys, but I did draw myself into the crowd.

Do you remember my pants/sheets picture I posted where I said it would make a great color scheme? I started with colors from there to do his pants and the stage.

Gotcha. I think I see what you mean...the guy on the right by the lady.

I was thinking of the guy in the center...just over the front guy's right shoulder. That guy does look a bit like your avatar, but I do see the fellow not in the original, but in your rendition.

In any case, I love it. Kudos.

Yep...I remember the pants and sheet...and I noticed his colours washing through the crowd a bit. I see you too!

It all looks the same as a religious ecstasy....same mechanism I guess.

Wonderful moment captured.

Hope to see more iPad fun from you.

You know, I swear I see a cop hat in the photo where you put yourself into the picture you drew.

Oops..no...you're under the "cop"

Yeah, that guy really does stand out as a copper, and I kept him but wasn't able to replicate that clarity. Really hard to tell what it is about the photo that makes it that obvious with that little to see.

Its neat. How bout losing the first guy to the right of the sax player and leave it a large dark area .

I like the expression on his face, from what little there is of it. But the part under the sax I think should be a lot darker.

I botched putting myself in, and ended up merging the layer (meaning I couldn't easily reverse it). The guy in the center I think I did the best on. Because it is on an iPad meant tons of zooming, on some I did a lot more than on others and that one is my favorite one based on how well it zooms out (some of the others who look too dark etc look much less so at the huge resolution I had to make it at, to get small levels of detail).

That's interesting. In your picture your presence has a powerful effect.....because you appear emotionless and you are looking at the camera/artist.....while everyone, except the cop probably, is immersed in the music. Looks almost like a Beckett alienation device!

I like the angular rendition of the instrument....except that I find it unnerving that there is no apparent hole in the outlet! Your comments about the problems of the iPad as medium explain that....but it's still unnerving to me!

It's fascinating to see the cop there....I assume his presence is to do with the contemporary moral majority concern that the ecstatic experience provided by jazz was somehow dirty and sexual, as opposed to blue enzyme detergent ecstasy provided by Christian religious trance.

Edit: actually, the cop is looking at the artist too. I think it's the badge/cap gestalt that makes the copness so crystal clear.

You really changed his expression....inadvertently I'm sure......his expression in the original photo is fascinating and one of the three pivotal reactions that make the photo so wonderful. Thank you for reproducing it......

Edit. Whoops, I think I am wrongly identifying who you meant....I think I mean the next guy to the right, not the partially obscured guy.

It's very good, I envy those who can draw. Interesting that the only black face in the picture is the guy playing the sax, that says a lot about the time.

Re the copness....I meant the BRIGHTNESS of the badge against the dark.

It does....hadn't noticed.

Yeah, I mean the partially obscured guy. Just one eyelash is all you get and gestalt the rest of the guy's face of such a tiny line.

The guy next to him, the Romney looking guy, really does look more like my drawing at the right resolution (I just posted the first one I found but I am using a much higher one that I downloaded months ago somewhere). I'll go look for a higher one now.

Here ya go, super high res version (thusly linked):

http://i.imgur.com/oSsxU.jpg

Edit: my drawing looks more like that at that resolution. When I scale down the expressions get a lot darker and change substantially (you can see an example of the difference comparing the small and the large photo for how different the expressions you imagined in the small one are in the large one).

I thought that was striking. But so was the absolute absence of racism in that moment, those guys up front are practically jizzing their pants where Big Jay was taking them.

It is a magical magical musical moment, like dlowan says. That's 90% of the art right there, the composition from the photographer.

What I tried to add on top of it was something along the lines of an elaboration of the observation you made. With him in color and I tried to make it "infect" the others. I'm just not very good at color, I always used pencils as a kid and mixing colors for shadow is entirely different than merely changing pressure or opacity so I'm just not that good at it yet.

In another version I tried to express my synesthesia as the way it was working, and added a colorful layer of smoke coming out of the sax but it just made it all look gaudy and I never really nailed what I had wanted to with the colored part of the painting. Gonna have to bone up on my color theory and color mixing.