Music: my artwork's best buddy...

Hello there! I am in a light mood, listening to music, taking a quick break in between drawings. My light mood is a direct effect of the music to which I'm listening at this moment. In the same way, music can get me in a more powerful mood... or even a depressed one. For as long as I can remember, I have liked music (as almost everybody in this world does), and it has helped me evoke sensations and feelings. These sensations and feelings are what I eventually try to render in paper or canvas. In other words, my artwork.

I want to write about this, because music is truly an essencial aspect of my work. You can say that it's up there next to the models that have inspired and keep inspiring me. Music is not  a person, is not tangible, but it certainly keeps mecompany while brings me inspiration. If my artwork was a person, music would be its sidekick, its buddy :)

I still remember being a teenager, when I started to focus more into realistic artwork, specifically pencil portraits. These portraits were rough edged, my early attempts to render human features. Due to the lack of experience, they would take me hours and hours to finish. Note: my occasional portraits still take me hours to finish... I just do it in a more efficient way. Anyway, I remember back in those early days, drawing for hours at a time, wearing my headphones, listening to my Walkman. Yes, my Walkman (well, an off-brand version), not a disc-man or anything like that. I am talking about that portable device that played cassette tapes, not even CD's. Oh, yeah, I'm old! :)

But, the point I want to highlight is how important music was for me back then, while drawing, as my companion. And up to this day, still is. Of course, times have changed. Now I listen to music from my computer, instead of a Walkman, at my studio. Nothing fancy, just a basic pair of speakers and I'm ready to go. I don't even own a MP3 player. I turn on the radio when I'm driving, maybe pop in a CD, or once in a while I stream some music on my phone.That's it. The rest of the time when I listen to music is while I'm drawing. And it's at those moments when I really fly.

So, you might be wondering what kind of music I like or to what kind of music I listen when I'm drawing. Well, contrary to what you might think, those are two very very different questions. The kind of music I like, or better said, the genre of music that gets me going in my daily life is rock, mostly metal and hard rock. That's my daily bread you can say. Rock, mostly old. Depending on your particular taste, you might think that this music is either plain noise or an awesome experience. Of course, I'm in the second group. I grew up listening to oldies: 50's and 60's rock, both in Spanish and English (being born and raised in Mexico). Later on, when I became a teenager, I started to listen to harder and more complex rock, and that's when metal came in to my life. The artwork inspired by it, in my early days, was more of the dark Fantasy nature. No, I'm not talking about BDSM or anything like that. The fetish images came in later, but that's another story :) No, the dark Fantasy I am talking about refer to images of fantastic creatures. All this, of course, featuring sexy girls.

OK, what I just mentioned is the music I like, but not necessarily the music I do listen when I'm drawing nowadays. When I am creating artwork, I try to choose a song or a list of songs that fit the mood of the image I'm creating. Let me clarify something: when I mentioned that I have "music that I like, and then music to which I listen while creating artwork", it doesn't mean that I don't like the music in the second category. I do like it, a lot, which is why it inspires me. I might not be fan of the genre of a particular song, but if it inspires me, then that song is welcome in my list. When I'm drawing I listen to many different kinds of songs, that I wouldn't probably listen outside my studio. I can be head banging to a heavy metal piece and then jamming to a pop song right after. Or it could be a romantic oldie song that gets me thinking. Or even Mexican rancheras or norteñas music (hello Mexican Independence Day image every year!). Certain songs bring me not only a certain mood, but also a certain memory, moments of my life... which in turn will get me to a certain mood. That is the reason why I like songs that are so far away from metal, like the Mexican rancheras that I mentioned earlier: they transport me to different times of my life, in this case, a time when I was living in Mexico. In a nutshell: as long as it fits and it inspires me, any song is good in my book.

It's fair to say that music is the extra element in the fuel that keeps me going, when I create artwork. As I've always said: art breeds more art. My artwork is proof of that. I will continue doing my part, creating artwork inspired in art, hoping that what I do inspires others as well. :)

See you next!
~Pops.

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