A West African Drummer for ColorChallenge - TuesdayOrange
Djembe drummer from Mali
© @mrsomebody
Thinking of orange reminded me of the colorful flag of Mali. With those saturated African colors of red, green and orange, what better use of orange could I find than in an African drummer scene? This image is of a stylized lead drummer, playing to the moves of a dancer. He is interpreting the dance moves in real time, a creative act for him as well as the dancer. The color orange is associated with joy, sunshine, enthusiasm, expression, and creativity, so it felt like a good fit.
For years I studied West African drumming – the rhythms from Guinea, Mali, and Senegal. Along with learning the main hand drum djembe parts, I also studied the parts for the dunun drums, the small kenkeni, the medium sangban, and the large dunun drum. Those three drums are played with sticks on cowhide and bell. These rhythms are incredibly complex, and really teach you what polyrhythm means. When you are playing a 4:4 pattern against another drum playing in 6:8, they lock in places but move away in other places. It plays tricks on the mind, and I found I needed to listen to the relationships between my drum and two or three other parts, so that I could always understand where I was in the rhythm. Otherwise you get lost and don't know where you are, which results in messing up!
See my vector outlines here, and the ultra simple color palette. Adobe illustrator shows all the lines, even when they are masked in the color version. This makes the keyline mode confusing, especially when you are using complicated patterns or textures. Notice how the shirt pattern breaks out of the shirt area.