Fortunate Son

Another day, another project. This latest illustration was a pretty fun one. We had to take a 60's song and illustrate it in some way, using influence from another artist or illustrator. Well, CCR is probably one of the biggest bands of the 60's, and I love Fortunate Son, so this was my first choice. I decided to take the song lyrics literally and do an illustration of a boy who's drumming with "silver spoon in hand." He's supposed to be one of the fortunate ones that's in a well brought up family, and playing the drum simply for fun rather than leading the troops (a bit of a throw back to the 19th century). I decided to use Edward Manet, one of my favorite painters, as my reference for the idea. I wanted to make it obvious that I was inspired by the Fifer for both subject matter and composition. When I was in Paris about three and a half years ago, I had the pleasure of visiting the Orsay and seeing this painting. It's really breathtaking to see in person (image of it after the jump).

For the actual painting, I decided to go with oils since it's been a few months since I've used them. I unfortunately had to rush it a bit more than I would have liked, but overall I'm pretty satisfied with it. I did want it to be a bit more impressionist, but it'll do.

Reference: Edward Manet's The Fifer