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I'm starting a painting I've been wanting to do for a long time and I'd thought I'd document a little of the process and the progress and share that progress here.  After my grandfather died his cello passed on to my father, who played the piano and the stand-up double bass but  never played the cello to my knowledge.  Several years ago he had some work done on the cello, made sure it was in good playing condition and even took some lessons.  Every time I saw him play it I'd think about what a good painting it would make.  

First step is the drawing so recently I had him over to sit for me while I did some quick thumbnail sketches to begin getting ideas about lighting and pose. 

Below is my dad playing his cello in my studio:

I have two soft-box lights with 5500 k fluorescent bulbs suspended from the ceiling of my studio and a very crude system of adjusting them and moving them.  I spent about a half an hour doing thumbnails and moving the lights.  Below are the thumbnails:

You can see I tried light coming from the left and coming from the right.  In the right-most thumbnail, the light is coming from the left and to the side and this is the one I decided to try.  Normally I like to stick with light moving left to right if I can, but the cello seemed to be getting lost in the left thumbnail.  In the image on the right I liked the way main edge runs from my dad's head, down his shoulder and then is picked up by the cello until it gets softer and lost toward the bottom.  It suggested the unity of musician and instrument that I was looking for.  These thumbnails took about five minutes each and I did them in my sketchbook with a General's Carbon Sketch pencil. 

After settling on that idea we took a break.  When my dad resumed the pose, we listened to some classic jazz hits.  He played along with the music and when his hands went where I wanted them I asked him what note he was playing and that's the one I had him go back to when I wanted to indicate hand positions or arm position.  Even the cello itself moved a little depending on the notes being played.

I think we worked another two hours and the result is the main image of this post.  If he's up for it, we'll do another to finish the drawing and then I hope to limit his duty to one more sitting for the painting.  

Stay tuned.