Beethoven Portrait

For this Beethoven portrait, I wanted to incorporate various elements that reflect his life. I began with thumbnail sketches to explore ideas and figure out how to best represent them. As I often mistakenly do, my initial ideas turned out to be too busy.

Procreate - 9”x12”

Given Beethoven's obsession with his art, I depicted his pen as if it were smoking, like he was writing so fast it was producing steam. The smoke spirals into his wild hair and transforms into musical notes, representing his intense connection to his compositions. From this, I created a base thumbnail digitally.

Using this, I created value studies to figure out the best way of creating a focal point.

From there, I created color studies.

I created the final digital painting in 30 hours.