A Bandoneon is a type of German Accordion that is used extensively in Tango music. I don’t know how you found your way to this site without knowing that, but here we are!

The first time I saw the decoration on a generation-one Alfred Arnold “Doble A” Bandoneon, I was shocked by how beautiful and intricate it was. I wanted to draw it. I put that drawing on t-shirts and bags so that everyone could see how beautiful it was.

Then my friend said: “I think you should draw more Bandoneons”. From my research for the Doble A drawing, I had begun to discover the huge variety in shape and decoration of the instrument, so I thought that might be a fun idea.

“How many Bandoneons?” I asked. “Seven would be a good number” She replied. I don’t know if she choose Seven because it is a number associated with the divine, or to have one Bandoneon for each of the deadly sins, either way she was talking about a considerable undertaking.

“oh” I said. “it takes me about 33 hours to draw each side, so that’s roughly 561 hours of work, plus however long it takes to find enough source material for each instrument”.

“But Pez…” she countered; “Nobody else is doing it”.

No, Nobody else is doing it.

I can’t imagine why….