An Animal Chamber Ensemble

I’ve drew my latest flyer illustration for the Lenape Chamber Ensemble’s spring children’s concert.  I always pick some cute animals to portray the musicians in the concert, although in reality they are world-class instrumentalists who play delightful snippets of classical masterpieces for youngsters, tell stories of the composers and get the children to dance to the music. These are wonderful concerts.

I had never drawn a colony of beavers before so I chose them; I placed a bunch of them on a dam for their concert, and since there were only four musical instruments to include this time I added a nattily dressed beaver couple as their audience. I started with a very rough pencil sketch, and I typed the wording in on a template I’ve made – the text always follows the same format, and I hand-letter it for the finish. It makes it easier to keep straight and space right if I hand trace the letters from this template.

I scanned the first sketch and made the characters a little bigger, and realized I had mistakenly drawn a harpsichord, but it should be a piano. Then I quickly inked & pencilled in blacks and gray values to see where I would concentrate the most color and texture in the picture. I added in a duck flying by, announcing refreshments, which they always provide to the kids at the concert. The duck was a little too large, I reduced it for the final art.

Onto a clean sheet of bond paper I traced the lettering using my lightbox, and also lightly traced the scene in pencil. Then I used a Faber-Castell fine felt-point to ink in the characters one by one, and all the little sticks and ripples of the dam and the water. I changed the backdrop from vague rolling hills to a fir-tree forest instead, with some reflections in the water. The finished art is below.

Again, I heartily recommend these concerts if you want to introduce a young child to the beauty and enjoyment of classical music!

 

Classical Music for Kids

The Lenape Chamber Ensemble does delightful concerts for children twice a year, I just finished this flyer for their April appearance.  These are world-class musicians who squeeze a perfectly-proportioned musical celebration for kids in between two grand and commanding evening concerts for adult music-lovers.  The musicians play snippets of their evening repertoire as they talk about the music’s mood, the composer’s life and how their instruments work and sing to each other.  It is a lovely experience for families – I especially enjoy when the dozens of little ones up front are invited to stand and dance however they see fit to the piece being played.  You can see all the details at their website.