Illustration Friday: Magnify

My focus will be changing. Next week I start online classes for my Masters in Instructional Design at Western Governors University. Long complicated story on how I came to this decision, the short of it is that it is time for a number of social, economic and personal reasons. When you start down a path like this you never quite know where you will end up--but it is my hope that I can use this training to further the mainstreaming of art education, and expand the horizon's of educational media. (I have more hope after Arne Duncan's letter to educators about arts being a core subject.)
I also hope that I can maintain a relatively regular presence on my blog with IF illustrations, but I don't know how much time I will have. A big thanks to all my friends out there for your support so far.

Illustration Friday: Caution Executive Control Malfunction

I just read Dr. Adam Cox, Ph.D's book No Mind Left Behind. He describes executive control as eight essential brain skills, attention being only one of them. (the terms ADHD and executive control dysfunction are often interchanged but Dr. Cox puts forth that executive control is much more complex than attention and hyperactivity.) But attention is the one I will focus on. There are three faucets to attention: length of time, scope or boundaries, and depth or concentration. I think these three things are important to note in designing illustrations as well. How long will someone need to look at it to understand? What elements do they need to notice? How much of the information will be needed later? (an important consideration in a picture book.)

How does my illustration meet these three questions?

Illustration Friday: Wrapped

Ansein feared something had gone horribly wrong with his embalming.

Not sure how to explain this one--just one of those random thoughts.

My son wanted to do an IF too, the image below is his version of "Wrapped."

Illustration Friday: Impatience

I think we all suffer from this one. It is so hard to let things grow in their own time. It is even harder when there is no visible progress.

There is a tree I see in the mornings. It is about 20 or 30 feet tall and it has morning glory vines growing on it all the way to the top. It is an amazing sight festooned in bright purple flowers.

Illustration Friday: Modify (Storyboard)

This is more about process than finished art. I'd been working on a set of postcards, (which I've become completely stalled on for a number of reasons.) I started my postcard series with a storyboard because I wanted them to tell a story. I then taped the storyboard up on the wall to serve as my inspiration. In the way these things go--I lost motivation on the project, but the storyboard never came down off the wall (piece of paper on the left.) Yesterday my daughter (age 5) asked for large paper and those pastel things. (I like to use oil pastels when I'm thinking because they prevent me from focusing on detail too quickly.) And she proceeded to do the "story paper" as she called it on the right. A modification of my own. My storyboard has a large image for the overall mood and color of the story and then rectangles mark out the scenes. She dutifully copied the number and location of my rectangles (including the one I'd crossed out!) and inserted her own story which involves a cat with wings, a flying horse (like mine) her babies and moose with wings--that even she is not sure what he's doing there. (I find it fascinating that the moose anomaly shows up in the "extra" 7th square.) She also went on to point out to me that she put the sun in the same place I did and that she did the grass the way I did it. The large yellow spots are dog pee.