Illustrator | Photographer
Beethoven Portrait
Procreate - 9”x12”
Procreate - 9”x12”
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.
Given Beethoven's obsession with his art, I depicted his pen as if it were smoking, symbolizing how quickly he was writing—so fast that it seemed to produce smoke. 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.
Using this, I created value studies to figure out the best way of creating a focal point.
From there, I created color studies.
After 30 hours of work, here are the final results!