Ferdinand, in progress.

Officially started my Ferdinand-themed painting this week. It feels nice to get back into portraiture with a set theme and idea in mind.

With each painting I do, I realize more and more what I need to improve on and what I need to focus more on. For this painting, I'm making an active effort to really push the palette and work some blues and crimsons into the flesh tones. While I am incorporating some of the elements of my drawings into this painting (cartoonish animal-headresses, whimsical composition), I want to reflect a stark difference in dimension between the two mediums. My drawings are very flat, with primary attention to contour lines and minor shading. My paintings are a thorough study of the shadows, highlights, and other tones that add a more emotional, intimate punch to these characters. I aim to reflect much depth in my treatment of these portraits.

For an additional exercise, I think I'm going to draw some smaller scenes of fights between 3 of the 4 boys in the painting (Ferdinand excluded). I might try out gouache or stick to watercolor, with outlining in micron pen. This will be a good way to get me reacquainted with figure drawing, as the source imagery I'm using only shows one pose for the four boys. I find that I rely and replicate my source imagery too much to a point where it's almost a direct attempt at copying the exact posture and expression of the person in the photo. I want to use my skills at representation while remaining spontaneous and inventive. I think I need to draw from life more often to keep myself on my game.