Eduardo Bajzek sketched this scene while waiting for the start of a performance of The Wall, by Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd fame. It was done at Morumbi stadium in Sao Paulo. So interesting.
Bruce Springsteen’s keynote at SXSW got rave reviews, largely in the print media and on air. So I was fascinated to run across Timothy J Reynolds’ sketchnotes, done when a marketing firm asked Reynolds to chronicle the event. Springsteen’s whole history of rock on two pages of a sketchbook. Marvelous. For more, listen to the speech here or watch this time-lapse video.
Ask a Canadian what song they associate with revered singer, songwriter and poet Leonard Cohen and it’s likely they’ll name Hallelujah. That soul-shaking anthem has been covered by everybody from Jeff Beck to Sheryl Crow, more than 200 in all. Cohen’s poetry is mesmerizing. His art is captivating, too.
K D Lang’s version of Hallelujah at the 2012 Olympics galvanized the opening ceremony. Cohen has that kind of power in lyrics and music (and novels, plays and art). Now, he’s releasing his first all-new album since 2004: Old Ideas (UPDATE: It released in January, 2012).
All this created the opportunity to look at these Leonard Cohen drawings and sketches, of which there are hundreds. The man is a modern polymath. Early commentary says the new album is the most overtly spiritual of all Cohen’s music, and that one of the cuts equals Hallelujah in power.
(This is Australian TV’s capture of the KD Lang audio at the Olympics, with still photos. I’ve never been able to find a high quality live video. )
This refreshing work is one of many A6 pages by Saunders & Co from festivals across England during the last 18 months. It’s on the sketchblog of the Saunders studio and gallery in the coastal village of Tollesbury, near London.
Sketches at a Concert
This was one of the first works I fell in love with when I started this blog. It’s by Nikira , a New York artist who has a huge range and seems to never stop sketching.
Music Driven Sketches
Mike Rohde‘s well known sketchnote style is enhanced by the music he was listening to at the time. His descriptions:
Left page: “A sketch generated while listening to the song Cups from an electronica band Underworld’s live from the Fuji Music Festival in Japan…”
Right page: “This was another music-inspired sketch, based on very different music style than Underworld. Inspiration here was provided by the tune Consolacao, from the Brazilian Groove compilation, by Bossacucanova.”
“Lands,” by Axel Alvarez, is an arresting sketchbook portrait of the music artist “Oh Land.” It’s today’s inspiration for The Sketchbook Project. Go see more of his great work. Oh Land is a Danish singer-songwriter whose real name is Nanna Øland Fabricius. She’s the opener for Katy Perry’s tour this fall. At Axel’s suggestion, I went looking to find out more and ended up posting her newest video, partly because I thought the choreography was especially creative, and also because people are raving about it. See what you think.