This last week I have been working on a piece to enter into the Poster Contest at NESCBWI conference at the end of April in Massachusetts.
The brief is as follows:
The Challenge: A Whole New World
How do you go about building an entire world in just one image? How do you use
illustration to "keep it real" ? Explore a new world in your poster.
Hmm ... I doodled about with some new ideas ... but I kept returning to an image that I created some time ago, which, in fact, is the banner for this blog and is called 'Boy and World'.
Initially I drew the sketch several years ago.
It's the kind of thing I used to do as a child ... imagining worlds with lots of little houses and towns and animals. But something about the boy and dog on the hill gave me an emotional attachment to this one ... he's looking to the future, wanting - or leaving - on an adventure. Yearning for what's over the mountains. So I used it as my blog banner.
Anyway, back to the contest brief. In the doodles I was doing I really wanted to use a circle to portray the 'world' motif. So I tried the image above cropped as a roundel.
So now I am liking how this focus's the attention. But it needs something else ... a border.
Maybe a border that tells us a little bit more about this boy's life. I thought about how much I loved the old maps in hand tinted atlas's - and I also love illumination. This is what came out:
I posted this on my Facebook page and a lot of people liked the black and white,
but in my head I saw the border in colour.
Hazel, I love your thought processes in this drawing. I also love the small details in a drawing, although mine are usually one subject that is highly detailed. I am not so clever as you at adding more stories to the whole picture. I really love this poster and love the story that it has to tell. Good on ya!
Totally engaging, Hazel, and I love seeing process. This is such a wonderful image and seems so personal. I love details and borders too. So much to look at and your soft colors make it feel like the old map you were going for. Fantastic work and so inspiring. Cheers!!
Thanks Patrish ... the more we draw the more we evolve ... I love doing simple drawings too, but this one definitely evolved!
Thanks Donna ... I am glad the map feel comes through. Your comments mean alot!