Playing Candy Crush

I wanted to keep with the theme of exploring children's playing but I wanted the subject matter to be fresh, intimate, and something I don't usually do. These three little monks were playing a game on their cell phone in Nepal and they were lost in the game, as we often are too when we play. Maybe they were taking a break from their daily spiritual studies, or maybe they were just being children playing a game. The look of concentration and intensity was so much fun to paint. The painting was done on dark toned La Carte paper, which doesn't take fluids on the surface so I couldn't work with an underpainting. I sketched the figures and went on from there. The monk on the left was initially the only one who was wearing a yellow robe, but since the middle monk was playing on a blue cell phone I wanted to keep the focus there. I changed the color of the robes of the monk on the right to yellow as well, so that the one who stands out the most is the middle monk. And of course, I had to incorporate the contrasting blue in the cell phone because yellow and blue just sing when placed near each other.