Sketchdump: John Williams

Tonight we went to WASO's Star Wars and Beyond concert – all pieces by John Williams. It was conducted by the fabulous Anthony Inglis, and was very good indeed. WASO are always splendid, and Inglis, who we've seen before, is hilarious with his comments and props (which this concert included an inflatable ET, a light sabre, Jedi costume, Princess Leia and a trick suit that revealed a complete Superman costume, in which he conducted the encore (which was of course the theme from Superman)). We had a lovely time.  

However, I'm not the best at sitting through concerts without singing involved. It's not at all that I don't like them, or don't appreciate the music, it's just that the lack of words gives my imagination free reign, and there's nothing quite so inspiring as live music – so I sit there, and think of all the things I could/should be drawing, and quite forget to actually listen to the beautiful music, while my fingers start to itch for a pencil. So tonight I took along a tiny sketchbook, and sketched away, and was able to appreciate the music much more, because I was focussed. I often draw while listening to audiobooks or cds, so I know I'm quite capable of drawing and listening at the same time. And the added bonus was that it took my mind of how uncomfortable the horrible seats in the Concert Hall are. I always start to get jabbing pains in a my tailbone about 40 minutes into a concert, no matter how I sit. >.<

So, I've compiled a little sketchdump of my efforts this evening, plus one random sketch of a 30s lady:

(click for a larger view)

I'm still mucking about with the cartoon style, trying to work out exactly what it is I'm doing with it, so I played with that tonight. Also evident is my terrible memory for what costumes people were wearing in movies I haven't seen for some years! =P 

If you want some clarification for what we've got here, we have a Jedi and a Slave Leia, which I sketched during four pieces from Star Wars, and also Leia and R2D2, which I did while waiting for the concert to start. Indiana Jones and the snake were done while listening to the Raider's March from Raiders of the Lost Arc, and the interval. The alien in the bobble hat and the space ship were during themes from E.T. and Close Encounters of the Third Kind, the approximation of Uhura was during the suite of Lost in Space – which I've never seen, but the conductor mentioned Star Trek of the 60s, so I went with that. Plus we have little sketches the musicians. And the 30s lady, done several nights ago while watching The Ex Mrs Bradford. 

All except said lady were done with a 0.5 mechanical pencil and #B lead in an A6 Moleskine Cahier. The lady was in an A4 Moleskine sketchbook. 

They were compiled in Photoshop, and I slapped on a gradient map and a texture from CGTextures.com to jazz them up a bit.