This scene was captured at the Spotted Cat Music Club in New Orleans. My process for this piece was very much like all my the previous New Orleans paintings where I started with a loose sketch of shapes. This sketch was actually a little bit more detailed than usual because the piece and figures are larger than most of the other pieces in the series. Normally I would just sketch a circle/oval for a person’s head but I added hair and minimal marks for facial features as well. For some reason or another I had a hard time keeping this piece loose and I ended up covering more of my signature drip marks than in previous pieces; and fairly early on in the piece. As you can see in the photos, I started with the background and then slowly worked my way into the figures; the front trombone player emerged quite easily and I was able to finish the important parts of him in one session. As I worked my way back however, the figures became increasinly more difficult. Specifically the lower half of the trumpet player. If you notice, the bottom right corner of the piece remains untouched for quite a while and that is because I had to reinvent it. I didn’t like what was in the reference and I knew I wanted to change it from the very start. I just didnt know what I wanted to put there instead; so I naturally avoided it like the plague until I had no choice but to make some decisions. When I finally did decide what to do with that space I botched it. The trumpet players legs lacked the necessary bone structure so badly that they resembled the green clay animation character Gumby. I had to do a little research to get a better idea on how to make his legs appear as if they were actually legs that had bones inside of them. That was really the most challenging part of this piece and once I was able to add some structure I knew it was finished!