Usually one to have a hard time doing pieces that are “too big to fit in [his] pocket,” senior Ian Bankhead decided to “get over [his] fear of large artwork” once and for all in the grandest way possible.
“The size makes you feel like you’re looking at a person, not a drawing,” said Ian.
Originally assigned a large charcoal drawing by art teacher Ms. Delphine Anaya, Ian decided to go as large as life with his piece, depicting British violinist Nigel Kennedy.
“He’s actually one of my favorite people… Although he is not traditional, he has been really successful in classical music as well as other genres, and has been performing with his own orchestra for years now,” said Ian.
Part of the assignment was to draw a person performing an action, and Ian explains why he chose a musician.
“I have never drawn a musician before, but I admire musicians like most guys admire athletes, so I feel like I’ve got a connection with the subject.”
Once he had chosen his subject, Ian began to create the piece. However, a piece as large as his has to be tackled in steps.
“I did practice sketches of every difficult part of the piece, so I had them all worked out before I added them.”
When he began to draw, Ian took artistic license and added his own touches to the “perfect photo” he found of Kennedy. However, this photo only showed Kennedy’s upper body, “so I made up the lower half. He was also playing an electric violin with no body in the photo, so I gave him a regular violin to make him look like a real street musician.”
Beyond charcoal, Ian also used other pastels to add color. As for the choice of background, Ian explains why his piece is on brown paper instead of white.
“I used brown paper from the Middle School faculty room because this piece was originally meant to be practice for a final on white paper, but I ended up preferring this color as a background.”
Going deeper into his piece, Ian describes its style as “precise, but it doesn’t look real, mostly because of the colors and the sketchy background.”
Besides art, Ian has been taking violin and viola lessons for years, and has developed quite a talent for and love of classical music. How he depicts Kennedy in his piece is how he thinks classical music should be played.
“I hope it helps a few people see the genre as a less formal and more accessible kind of music.”
After two weeks, Ian’s piece is finally finished. For those who wish to view Ian’s piece, he mentioned that it has been in the student art gallery up at the Emmons Art Center and it is now in the main office.