Baton in acrylic with resist

This week's Illustration Friday prompt is gesture. I grew up singing in choirs and playing in the school band (oboe and tuned percussion, of all things), and I also had my own childrens' choir for about ten years, so I guess that the ultimate in gestures for me is conducting.

I've not actually had much experience with the baton since most choral conducting is done with the bare hand, but I've done baton a little. If I'm to be honest, it felt a lot more regimented and a lot less instinctual than conducting for a choir, but it definitely makes you think more about the importance of each movement.

Since I did most of my choral conducting for kids, it was really more of a full-body thing than conducting with a baton usually is. Kids respond to your energy as well as your beat, so if you want them to truly follow you you'd better be planning to be doing a lot more than just waving your arms around. Conducting a full concert can be pretty exhausting. And since you're generally mouthing the words right along with them, it can also make you just as dry as if you'd sung the whole thing too.

It's tiring, all right, but it can also be pretty exciting to see -- and feel -- a group of singers reacting well as one body. Do I miss it? Yeah, sometimes. Not enough to do anything about it, true, but there are times when I wish I could just step into it for a while again. It was a big part of my life, and every now and then it feels weird to realise how long it's been since I led a rehearsal.

Um...

Yeah. Rehearsals.





Maybe I don't miss rehearsals all that much...

Anyway. Today's doodle is mostly just a result of me having an idea an then deciding I wasn't in the mood to go realistic with it. Oil pastel for resist, painted over with acrylic, and then rubbed down just after the paint stopped being tacky but was still flexible.