The Bygones Fan Art

For several years I've been a fan of the music of Joshua Lee Turner. I've enjoyed his solo work, his collaborations with Carson McKee, and more recently his pairing with Allison Young as 'The Bygones'.

Josh & Allison currently have a Kickstarter running for a first full album and tour for The Bygones (funded in less than 48 hours!): https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thebygonesband/the-bygones-first-full-album-and-tour-3

I decided, just for fun, to do some fan art of the duo as birds in a mock poster/tee design––sort of as a thank you for the enjoyment they've given me through their music. Below is a bit of process & inspiration for the piece, as well as some links to videos of Josh, Carson, & Allison's music.

The piece started with inspiration of a drawing Allison did as part of the Kickstarter graphics with little bird versions of them singing and playing the guitar. I based my birds on house finches, but added in some glasses on Josh and looked at specific references of his guitar and classic microphones that Allison uses when she preforms with Post Modern Jukebox.

I drew the duo traditionally in pencil on copy paper and then added some digital tweaks for my layout with a stock banner shape, clip art notes, a font for the text, and straight lines for the guitar strings.

I printed the above layout onto copy paper and taped it to the back of a sheet of Strathmore 300 series bristol. On my Huion lightpad I was able to see through the surface of the bristol to the image below and used it as a guide to ink from.

For pens I used Copic Multiliner SP's with the 0.7 & 0.3 nibs. The pencils were pretty tight with a lot of lineweight work already done, so the inks were mostly about reinforcing that without screwing it up and overworking it in the process.

In addition to the full color version you saw at the top of this post (where I ignored real-life finch color patterns and went for nodes to Allison & Josh's hair as base colors), I tried making something a little more vintage looking with a monochrome grey-blue tinted version.

Again, this art was done just for fun, to share with Josh & Allison (who wrote me back very kind notes on Instagram), and to help get more eyes and ears to music and musicians I appreciate.

Here is The Bygones Kickstarter link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thebygonesband/the-bygones-first-full-album-and-tour-3 (still time to help fund and get a copy of the album early)

And here are some videos of the music that inspired me to back their album and follow their music.

Public Life –– Solo Album by Joshua Lee Turner

After seeing some of Josh's YouTube videos of him playing covers or explaining Nick Drake's guitar specifics, this was the work of his that got me hooked. It was my go-to Pandemic soundtrack starter. There's a Paul Simon & Nick Drake quality to this album that I really love.

Below is the entire album as a playlist on YouTube:

UNAMERICANA –– The Other Favorites
(Carson McKee & Joshua Lee Turner)

Carson is Josh's long time friend and collaborator and together they are a Folk duo called The Other Favorites. This album was released during the pandemic––I think one track per week. There's a Kingston Trio meets Simon and Garfunkel meets Tennessee Ernie Ford feel to the set-list, and while it leans more classic country than I normally go, I'm happy to be there for this album.

Below is the entire album as a single video on YouTube:

In The Hollow Wood ––– The Bygones

As the Kickstarter is currently going for their first album, 

(https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thebygonesband/the-bygones-first-full-album-and-tour-3)

there isn't a lot of original music available from The Bygones yet...but Josh and Allison have performed many times together on Josh's YouTube channel.

But one song that has been released is 'In The Hollow Wood' A dreamy lullaby folk ballad that evokes the tale of Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree.

Below is a video of that song on YouTube: