Sketchin'

I found these today while going through a sketchbook from last year. Gesture drawings of the minstrels that I'm painting. I guess this project has been in the works longer than I realized.
Here are some more thumbnails I've done to work out compositions. In the first couple I was trying to capture a really special performance from the Florida Renaissance festival. Every morning, immediately when the faire opened, before anyone started their first set, most of the musicians congregated at the Half Clef stage to play period music as a large ensemble. The energy was unlike anything else at the festival, and visually, having all those performers, costumes and instruments clustered together was fantastic.

I think this second one works better because there's a little more negative space and a diagonal is starting to form from top left to bottom right along the characters' heads. I may add more figures or hints of figures to really get that clustered feeling. The boy in the bottom right has ear gauges and a lip ring.
Some sketches of the minstrels I posted photos of yesterday. The one above is okay, but I am working on developing the one below more because I feel like it relates better to the Zurbarans I posted. These musicians frequently perform Spanish language songs, so I want to model them on a Spanish baroque artist.


I leave you with a line from my favorite of Owan and Charry's repertoire, an Argentinian ballad:

The sorrows of life and the little cows go down the same path. The cows belong to someone else; the sorrows are our own.