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This post is the result of two different conversations with two different friends that I've had in the past few months. In conversation one; my friend said to me that one of the best ways to solve your own problems in life is to find somebody else, give them advice, and then follow it yourself. I don't doubt that he was talking about me to me.

In conversation two my friend and I were talking about our personal voice in illustration, I recommended to her that she take a closer look at the work that inspires and influences her, and examine them for all the qualities that she liked. In other words, the "why," as in "Why do you like that piece of art?" In doing this that she would be able to see the continuous thread that ran through all these disparate images, and that thread would be her personal preferences, her aspirations. Expanding out from there, she would be able to strengthen her own works by explicitly understanding her influences. Simple, right?

So, you see, this post is me, taking my own advice, and hauling some art into the light, expressing my perceptions of them in an effort to reveal qualities which I endeavor to imbue in future illustrations.

Mood and Tone; The concept

Two artists who are wonderful in the conveyance of Mood and Tone are John Jude Palencar and Alfred Hitchcock. Both of whom are able to create intense, and sometimes somber, moods in their works. I've been a fan of John Jude Palencar's work for quite some time, however it is rarely the subject matter he chooses which captivates me, but it is the way he portrays things, his technique, pallet, and composition. Which add up to the creation of specific moods through out his work. So, it is his use of the tools at hand which he chooses to express himself that I admire.

Because John Jude Palencar's expressions are often psychologically charged, that, I thought a nice companion artist would be Alfred Hitchcock. True, Alfred Hitchcock works in a different medium, but he incorporates many of the same tools to create the myriad of moods and tones in his work. He is a Master of composition, in the use of lights and darks, and also in his ability to imbue a psychological tension into his pieces. For this side by side comparison we'll be looking at a still image from Psycho that I pulled off the web, along with an image from John Jude Palencar's website. I should pause here to thank Mr. Palencar for his express permission to use his work here, as well as to credit the Opera Company of Philadelphia who originally commissioned the Madame Butterfly piece that we'll be looking at. Links to these sites can be found at the bottom of this post, please check them out after your done reading.**

"Put light colors next to light colors and dark colors next to darks, then where you want the viewer to descend, put dark next to light." ~ Harvey Dunn.

This succinct sentence holds the cornerstone to quality illustrations, and the nature of communicating with images. Part of what Harvey Dunn is talking about here is a strong value structure. A strong value structure is absolutely essential towards crafting and communicating with an image. If that structure isn't there, the picture will be confusing and ineffective. As artists we are communicators, and through the conscious use of the tools at hand it becomes possible to communicate those ineffable qualities of life, rendering visible the invisible.

Pretty heady stuff, but there is a simple way to view this as well:
Mood=Tone=Value

To start with let's open ourselves to the wholeness of these terms, as they encapsulate multifaceted concepts.

Mood can be a slippery idea to get our hands on. People talk about mood all the time, but what are they really saying, what is a mood? As a working definition let's agree that mood refers to an emotional state of mind. We can talk about moods like, Joy, Elation, or their counter