Jonathan - Charcoal Portrait in Painter 8

Portraits are fascinating subject matter. As well as guitars and custom cars I enjoy a good portrait.

Lately I have been doing more of these, beginning as sketches in Painter 8. Then if I like the sketch enough I flesh it out with painting.

In this instance I began with a charcoal sketch of Jonathan, which developed into the portrait I am sharing today. I used Painter 8 to flesh it out again using the charcoal brushes. I like the colors of this piece, the came from the beginning photograph.

Painter 8 is a great program for natural media and I really enjoy tackling a portrait with the different types of media it has to experiment with and grow creatively.

We went to the American Idol's concert last night and It was a noisy but enjoyable show. My songwriting has little to do with Pop music. I noticed that in evidence during the concert. It was obvious that I don't tend to reach crescendos, the high climax, in my songs. Mine are more Folk Rock and Rock like but without that build up that many performances had at the concert.

I don't suppose that isn't a bad thing, just different. I have plenty of hooks and decent choruses, and some decent verses plus a few bridges here and there. But that rousing climax eludes my work. I imagine others interpretations of my songs might add that to a performance. But as for my recording of them I have rare times that really burst out intensely. Could be that that is my style of delivery and not the songs shortcoming.

I burned some Audio CD's to send to my brother in Alaska of my current work, much of it written and recorded this year. It is a challnge to place the songs in order for a CD. Which comes first, the song the name of the CD is or another to begin. I tend to alternate between my singing and instrumentals, and try to build a listening experience. I am reviewing one right now to see if it has any problems with playback.

I switched to Media Player to add the following song, one of my favorites of my newer tunes.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Kirk Mathew Gatzka - Something Amazing
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