Musician Portrait Roughs

I've been switch-reading between a couple of books on American Roots music and one on the history of Country, and this (coupled with my listening habits) have made me want to do some kind of music-based project, mostly because I can't spend so much time reading about (or listening to) something without turning it into output without feeling like I'm being lazy and self-indulgent.

Doing a project based on whim interest is certainly self-indulgent, but at least it feels like I'm accomplishing something, so it scratches my work ethic itch.  And a project like this has the potential to fulfill one of my foremost goals when it comes to the projects that I undertake: to introduce readers/lookers to something that they may not have encountered before.  Little gives me more professional satisfaction than to hear that a drawing I did got somebody to pick up a book or read about a historical figure, and I'm hopeful that this series might get someone to hit their old record store.

So, anyway, these aren't the final drawings, but compositional roughs.  I've never done square compositions before, and I'm surprised to find that I really like them.  They force simplicity in a way that the rectangular stuff doesn't.

Not sure how I'll handle the final art, but I'm guessing I'll use a brush, something I almost never do on comic pages these days.

Anyway, here are a few.  Doing these in between Creeps pages.

The Coon Creek Sisters

Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys

Lead Belly

Ola Belle Reed

The Carter Family

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Son House

Jimmie Rodgers

Blind Lemon Jefferson

Hank Williams