Digeridoo street player

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Wunderbar, Christof ! It is a great watercolour portrait, fully expressive.

Sydney, Australia. Watercolour 56x38cm on Arches 300g, rough. I’ve been fascinated by the deep, vibrating sound this Aborigine created with his wind instrument. He asked me to give it a try, but when I blew into the 1.5m long hardwood tube nothing came out of it. He played again and I watched and listened for quite some time, made quick sketches, notes about colours and a couple of photos. In my studio I created the watercolour painting from my reference material. To express the Australian heat I worked with strong contrast, warm colours (Yellow Ochre, Burnt Sienna, Burnt Umber) and hard edges in the bright sun. On the other side, in the shaded areas I used more neutral-cold colours (French Ultramarine, Alizarin Crimson) and tried to create soft edges. For the skin tones I used different values of the same hues. The background I only suggested with broad simple brush strokes and without any detail to enhance the vibration of the sound created by the Digeridoo.