Simon & Garfunkel

It was some time ago now that I found my way toward Paul Simon’s Graceland – well, precisely this from Graceland. With further exploration, my curiosity ended up taking me all the way back to the early sixties, when he had a partner. In a crazy and psychedelic era, Simon & Garfunkel cut gentle, thoughtful figures in music and image, radiating honesty and lack of pretension; even Garfunkel’s awesome hair managed to flow without outrage. They’re all the better for it. There will always be a huge, lasting appreciation for performers of this fashion, not to mention their enormous combined talent, and so I’m sure they’re as relevant today as they were then. Indeed, S&G struck a chord with me, and opened me up to a genre to which I’d afforded little attention at the time. A tremendous duo.

This was a fun – well, sort of – exercise for a couple of reasons. I picked up a different brush – about time! – using a smoother one, which might explain a slightly different finish to my portraits of late. It’s always a little daunting having to work with not one but two faces; I was originally going to do a post just on Paul, but I’m glad I included Art – not only does he, of course, very much deserve the recognition, but his hair was easily the best part of the drawing. Even if he is pouting a little, I think he looks markedly stronger than Paul; I might try and do him proper justice as a solo someday (I think getting used to the new brush might be partly responsible for that, as I did Paul first). It was originally portrait, with Art above Paul, and I kept changing my mind back and forth between portrait and landscape, tinkering with their composition, until I essentially just washed my hands of the decision, lest I go completely mad, and left it as a landscape with just a hint of a gradient between the two. Decisions, decisions!

• 60s
• Art
• art garfunkel
• drawing
• folk rock
• music
• paul simon
• portrait
• simon and garfunkel