This was drawn 11 October 1997 and is a copy I made of a portion of a Picasso etching that was on display at the time in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Obviously the subject is not a professional musician, but just as obviously, what the artist has captured nevertheless is the intensity of the music making. Two things fastinated me about this work by Picasso. First, the exuberance of the child making music with the cymbals, and second, the simplicity of line with which Picasso captures the energy of the moment. There is something quite useful about such line simplicity in capturing musicians, and I have often tried to emulate it. It works better on some musicain subjects than upon others and it works better under some context conditions than under some others (insets below are two where it worked).

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