More Monkeys

After the previous failed monkey painting I looked at some reference photos in order to draw the monkey better, and to experiment with what pose would be best to show the monkey jumping from the tree. I settled on the one which I took into the next drawing, because I thought it looked the most like it was jumping. Also the outstretched arms looked quite threatening, and in the poem the monkey is meant to be jumping to attack something. It would be more obvious that the monkey was jumping to attack if I showed it’s face, but I’m not very confident at drawing a monkeys face so I made the decision to leave it out. Upon reflection I wish I’d worked on drawing the face more, but I was eager to get on with drawing the rest of the poem.

After figuring out which pose to draw the monkey in I tried using Bessa’s colour pallet again but in a different medium. These drawings didn’t work any better than the one in acrylic paint, but I did like the composition of the drawing as it really made you focus on the monkey. I thought that as a stand alone drawing it was quite boring,  but perhaps if I put it together with the eyes I’d done previously it might work. If it was just one drawing out of many out together the focus wouldn’t be on it, so it wouldn’t have to be so detailed. It did effectively communicate the story, so I didn’t want to completely trash it.