We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Jeff Barlow a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Jeff, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
My most meaningful project is not an individual project. It’s the process of how I create my art. I draw the band in one song. I started out as an urban sketcher — I liked to go places with my sketchbook and sit down for a while and capture the moment by sketching my surroundings. One evening I was invited to go see a friend’s band play and decided to bring my sketchbook. At first the drawings were terrible. Bands don’t stand still the way urban landscapes do. In a moment of frustration I thought “If you’re going to be all over the place, so am I — the next song that plays, I’m going to do my drawing in that length of time. The drawing was sloppy, loose, kinetic — it was rock & roll. And so my habit began. I’ve been to nearly a show a week to sketch bands in the same way.
The great thing about living in Seattle is that it is a fertile field for creating some of the greatest music the world has ever seen. Played by some of the most wonderful, talented, smart, giving, friendly musicians in the world.
The music scene is so important that I want to help share it with the world through my sketches.
While there are millions of photos of bands floating around the world, what do they all mean? Anyone can snap a great picture with their phone in a millisecond and it’s here, it’s posted, and it’s forgotton. But sitting down, studying the bands movements and poses, Taking the time and effort to draw their performance, elevates the importance of what they’re doing.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I’m a graphic designer by trade, but I learned to urban sketch through a design conference I attended earlier in my career. The sketching idea stuck with me for a while, and it evolved into drawing bands the way I do.
As my drawing has started to be noticed in the Seattle music scene it really feels good to have people start to know who I am. when I started doing these sketches no one knew who I was or what i was doing. When I would tell the musicians that I had just drawn their band in one song, they would say “I wondered what you were doing with that book — I thought you were a music critic.”
Now when I introduce myself I’m starting to have the bands say, “I wondered if that was you, I’ve been following you for years on Instagram!”
They’re always thrilled when the realize what I’m doing and it feels great.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
The most rewarding thing I see in doing these band drawings is having someone find a new band they love because they saw my work.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
As an artist I used to hate limits. I hated being restrained. But later I discovered that tight constraints can sometimes be the seeds of great creativity. A portrait of an entire punk band done in the 1:42 it takes them to play a song seems impossible. Yet I’ve got nearly 40 sketchbooks full of those kind of drawings. And the bands LOVE them.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.drawitin.one
- Instagram: @drawitin1
Image Credits
Portrait photo: Kim Barlow All drawings are my own.