Ludwig van Bathoven, finished

Here's the finished painting of Ludwig van Bathoven, at last.

Most who knew Bathoven were familiar with his foul moods—but very few knew that his volatile outbursts
came from frustration at only being able to play two notes at a time.

With this piece, I didn't take any process images. . . because it was that kind of week.  I was busy getting used to Twitter (I'm @Brianliesbooks), and I was preparing for tomorrow's blog feature, the first guest blogger on Midweek Musings (come back tomorrow to see who it is!  Teaser:  she creates some of the funniest, quirkiest book characters I've met from below the Mason-Dixon line).  

OK, it wasn't all work.  I was also dealing with the loss of a 20-year-old dishwasher and haunting Craigslist for a drum kit.

For this painting, I began with my traditional burnt sienna and burnt umber underpainting (seen here in the piano bench).  Looking at my rough sketch, I decided I wanted to keep it very tonal with Ludwig's scarf/ascot appearing as the strongest color in the piece.  I also wanted to emphasize the pathetic nature of a pianist /composer playing with his thumbs, and the absolute black of the wing-bones creates a nice contrast against the sheet music to do that.  I also added one of Ludwig's feet in the final painting— the poor guy can't touch the piano's pedals, either.

Character #3— Ludwig van Bathoven

Having done three (and soon, four) books about bats, there's an assumption that I live in a world of bats—that I'm a bat expert, that they're my favorite animal, etc.  That's not really true.

Although I've been fascinated with them since I was a boy, watching them fly over our backyard during long summer evenings, the real thing about doing the bat books is that I enjoy spending time imagining a night-time world in which the things we humans do is turned upside down.  The bats are a great blank canvas of characters through which to look at human activities in a different way.

One odd thing about being associated with bats is that everyone wants to offer up a bat joke, or more often, a bat pun (and most of them are excruciatingly bat. ——See what I mean?).  One guy who has cropped up again and again in jokes since Bats at the Beach was published in 2006 is Ludwig van Bathoven.

When I was working on Bats in the Band (coming in August), I thought Ludwig was going have a large presence in the story.  But somehow he never made it into the final cut.  I figure he's got to be seen at some time, and as we begin to gear up for the launch of the book, it might as well be now.

So here's Ludwig van Bathoven, a tortured musical soul.

Most who knew Bathoven were familiar with his foul moods—but very few knew that his volatile outbursts
came from frustration at only being able to play two notes at once.