recent sketches

I got a chance to go back to the drawing board recently and sketched something for a newsletter I help layout. the sketches were for the children's story page. the story is about a family who goes camping and then the boy gets lost in the woods. he is brave and sleeps there that night. his parent's find him in the morning and he says he wasnt scared cuz he knew God was there watching over him.

for not doing a pencil sketch in a really really long time i thought these came out pretty well. and im typically pretty critical.

here are the comments i got back from the editing team....while they're constructive, it showed me i should draw for myself and my passion. not to fit a predefined niche! there were more comments on a voicemail!

• In the many times I have worked with illustrations, the most common thing that comes up is too much detail in the work. When it comes to handmade illustrations, there's a tendency for artists to put a lot of craftsmanship into the work. It can work out nicely, but it also introduces the opportunities to find more things to break or need improvement.



• Less detail in the illustrations works out better for this children's story purpose. In your future illustrations in this context, start out as simple as you can. Consider eliminating backgrounds and only depict the necessary props for the scene. This way, you can put all of your attention on the main characters right.



• I think these sketches are a good start and could work with some modifications. I'm not sure if we have the time to make those changes or not.



• The main fix that's needed is to make the limbs more proportional, and also to be more consistent with the art style. The father's left side needs to be smaller than the side closer to us. It's ok that his thighs are larger than his shins, because people sometimes do that kind of thing as part of a certain look (like large heads or large hands), but the son is not made in that same style. The son has a proportions problem too: the left leg goes behind the right, but it appears to be longer than the right leg.



• There are also some optical illusion things happening. For example, it looks like the boy is carrying a fishing pole because the lines of his collar are flush with some lines from the tent. Some of that illusion stuff also happens in areas with the father too, and this kind of thing ends up being confusing.



• On the picture with the tree, this one has fewer items so there's less work to do there. The squirrel/chipmunk is very detailed, but the boy is not, and they're slightly different art styles. What I'd do with that one is only use the lower 2/3 of the illustration and focus on the child.



• what I would add to the discussion is that when illustrating something that is part of a lesson, ideally, every element in the piece should work to reinforce the point or value/lesson, as well as to show key points of the action. Keeping this focus in mind might be helpful when deciding the kinds of background detail to include or exclude.



• The squirrel, though very adorable and well-drawn, is almost "gratuitous" ( i.e., as if it were just thrown in as page decoration rather than reinforcing the lesson) -- although I think the boy leaning sadly against the tree worked very well. Some big tree roots would have been good, as they're a part of the story (but then it would have had to be a deciduous tree, such as an oak, as pine trees don't tend to have big root systems above ground).



• Looking ahead to next time, perhaps we'll try discussing some ideas as a first stage, as to how to highlight the value and story both, and/or write out more detailed specs beforehand. . .

Since when is art about predefines specs???