Painting Process for "Child Soldier" - Series: Gardens of Impunity

This Painting is meant to bring attention to the recruitment of Child Soldiers throughout the world, the reason why I was compelled to make a painting about this issue was a video of a child soldier from the FARC guerrilla in Colombia who was filmed agonizing and died on tape after being hurt during combat. He was around 10 or 11 years old and it broke my heart, there is a link for the video at the bottom if this post.

 

There are approximately 250,000 child soldiers throughout the world, there should be none.

 

This is part of the process and end product of an issue close to my heart.

 



Finished Painting CHILD SOLDIER
Acrylic/Mixed Media on Canvas
48" x 48"

Initial Stages
Building texture, adding thoughts and newspapaer cut outs of words that are significant and the faces of some I consider villains.

Building flowers out of bullet casings

Adding grenades to the background and enjoying the company of little Tommy, my doggie nephew.

 Forming the silhouette of the child soldier, adding the names of the countries that recruit child soldiers, Colombia is in the heart section.

Video Child Soldiers in Colombia