I really struggled with my drawings of Ella Fitzgerald's grand daughter Alice. I wanted to show her happy and laughing but kept making mistakes with facial expressions. I think I have tried too much in the past to make characters look 'good' without putting enough thought into the emotions that they are conveying. I made sketch after sketch trying different styles and started to feel quite negative about the process.
While trying to make characters that look like they're laughing I managed to draw lots that look angry, not much help with this project but at least I know how to draw angry people. I did like the simpler characters like the one above. The big bold eyes and giant smile sum up the emotion I was looking for. Another problem with this character design was that I could not find a picture of Alice anywhere. She was Ella's grand daughter and the daughter of Ray Brown Jr who was well known as a jazz pianist and singer so I thought finding a photo of her would be quite easy.
I really want every part of this image to communicate the happiness felt by Ella Fitzgerald sat in her garden at the end of her life. I want my illustration to look like a performance from the birds and Alice. I think I should use bright summery colours to represent nature and her surroundings.
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