Well, here’s my finished Al Capone painting. I’m very pleased with this. I was starting to get too fussy with the detail, so I stopped myself before overworking it.
I’ve already moved on to the next painting in this, my series inspired by Prohibition-era America. The very rough layout that I threw onto the canvas on Friday afternoon is below, along with the reference photo. It’s a bunch of anonymous, dodgy-looking boozers enjoyer an illicit beer in the 1920s.
My main focus at this stage is getting the positioning of the figures right, and a loose sense of the directions the caricatures will take. The photo appealed to me because every face in it has so much character. Everyone looks so uneasy. That fella in the centre looks like he’s ready to shiv you in the gents. The big guy on the left looks like a mob accountant, thirsty after a long day cooking the books. And the dude in the background with the eyebrows looks horrified that his picture is being taken at all. Is he the speakeasy proprietor, risking his neck keeping ne’er-do-wells plied with hooch?
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