Walkin Blues part 2

Been a while since I devoted a whole posting to this project, but it's what I'm working on these days, so it deserves it.  The prints are due early next year, so I have to get going on them.  Plus, I have a camera now, and can document what I am doing. I only wish I had something better to show.  The idea is to illustrate some Robert Johnson songs, send the images to Tom, and let him decide what will be used for this project.  He had said he wants me to make a piece that will be part of a diptych with a piece he is doing, so I figure it's only fair he should have a say in which one he takes, and my plan is to do at least 3 of them as of now. 

Finding some Robert Johnson songs was not difficult- I found most of what I remembered on YouTube, and was able to choose some lyrics that I felt I could work with.  I wrote them all down, along with some ideas I had for images to illustrate them.  In some ways, the process is no different from working on all those saints, and Ecclesiastes prints, where I only had text as a starting point, and came up with the visuals on my own.  

I decided to start with "Walkin Blues", just because the visual idea seemed the most advanced.  First I did some sketches in a sketchbook, and liked what I saw enough to start working on the wood.  Started drawing on a piece of wood the proper size with pencil back in late April, during the open studio event that was held in my building.  I have worked on it now and then ever since, descriptions of which can be found throughout this blog, but I think this is only the second posting dedicated to this piece specifically. 

The actual lyric is kind of vague, no specific definition that I can find on the web, so all I can do is provided an illustration that makes sense to me, my interpretation of the words, but like I said, this is not a whole lot different from those earlier projects, where I was creating interpretations of other people's words, so I figure I can handle this. The main difference I see right now is that those earlier series were color, while this one is to be black and white, per Tom's instructions.  I've done plenty of black and white work, so that is not a problem. 

None of what you see above is final, but it will give you an idea where I am headed.  The focus is on the woman walking in, who is getting all the attention of those in the place, positive from the men, and negative from the women.  All of this is coming out of my head, so it's a little bit of a challenge, drawing all these figures. Believe it or not, everything has improved considerably since I started it, but I am not at all satisfied with it yet.  But I think the idea is good, so it's just a matter of time before I get it to where I want it.  And having more black in the piece will help a lot as well, but no point in filling those in until I am satisfied with the drawing.  But this is where I'm at right now with the first one.