African Drums: Oil Painting Demo Step 1

Marriage in my African culture is always a 3 part event which starts with the man/groom coming to see the girl/bride's father with some elders in his family and ends with the exchange of palm wine between the man/groom and girl/bride.

To cut costs, many people do everything at the same time while most split them up into 3 different occasions.

Even though marriage in a Church is important, traditional marriage is the most important because without it the marriage cannot be recognized by the family elders. And recognition by the family elders is very important because of the way the African family is structured.

There is a very strong sense of family in Africa and it is very common to see families living together in one compound.

When getting married, young people always know and understand that with marriage comes the addition of a whole new family.

Part of the highlights of every Traditional marriage ceremony is the presence of African Dance and accompanying African Drums.

These people are always colourfully dressed and add a lot of colour and fun to the whole event.

With this post, I will be painting an African dance group that was present during my traditional marriage ceremony.

I will be using a reference photograph from the set of pictures taken during the ceremony. I was particularly fascinated by their African drums and how they played them.

I usually start off my paintings with a sketch (sometimes I paint straight on the canvas without a sketch!! ).

For the sketch, I have used a Charcoal pencil and I am working on a canvas cloth.