Shy but Joyful

This piece was centered around the emotion of joy and the action of laughing. I wanted to make it obvious that the boy is happy. My challenge did come in deciding on a background, and I still don't really like the pattern I went with. However, I think the brighter yellow fade around the figure made it a little more bearable. I used foreshortening in the hand, but only a little change in planes so that the foreshortening isn't exactly obvious. The colors I used were able to add texture to the shirt in the wrinkles. Same for the skin, in that I needed to make obvious the light source. I decided to make the boy have darker mostly because I wanted such a contrast when it came to the light source, but I had also never drawn a colored person before (mostly just white or tan) so I wanted to give it a try and mark the differences. It definitely made the colors pop more. Pieces that depict human emotion are a favorite of mine, and I look to artists like Ivana Besevic for how to really bring about emotion in a face in any style (see below).

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