show and tell

i was recently commissioned by one of my friends to design a guitar paint job (not to actually paint the guitar, thank goodness). this is the final sketch and i'm pretty well pleased. can't wait to actually see the guitar!



it was no doubt inspired by 3 things:

1. the recent performance of florence and the machine that i had caught at coachella.


2. a vintage cover of salinger's catcher in the rye (this is the part where i admit to perusing bookcoverarchive.com at least once a week).


3. pablo neruda's poema 13, which is excerpted in the inscription.

Entre los labios y la voz, algo se va muriendo.
Algo con alas de pájaro, algo de angustia y de olvido.
Así como las redes no retienen el agua.

Between the lips and the voice, something goes dying.
Something with wings of a bird, something of anguish and forgetting.
Similar to the way that nets don't retain water.

in case you were wondering about the thought process of a designer!