Editorial Illustration
For this assignment, we had to draw an illustration for an article from a website or newspaper.
Personal Goals
For this project, it was important for me to do as much research and brainstorming as possible, so I could come up with thoughtful concepts and not just a simple, boring illustration about the subject of the article.
Class Assignment
The first thing we did to get into the theme of this project, was an assignment with the entire class. The teacher gave us a word, and then we had 5 minutes to make 3 sketches of things that visualized that word best.
Research & Brainstorm
We had the choice out of 4 articles, and I picked out the 2 that interested me the most and already had ideas in my mind for. To start off, I read the articles again and wrote down all the important words that could help me come up with a drawing idea. I then also wrote down synonyms for those words and other related words.
I chose the 2nd article, which is about how sounds of nature can calm you down and help you focus on your work again. I found this subject more interesting because I love nature and before I started working on this project, I already used to listen to calming music with rain in the background, which was a funny coincidence.
I made a word web with all the words to see if I could connect some words to come up with even more ideas.
Moodboard
I made a moodboard on Pinterest to get more visual ideas. While looking at all the pictures, I wrote down even more ideas for the illustration.
Sketches
Time to sketch out all my first basic ideas to get to the more thoughtful ideas. Eventually I came up with the idea to use a sea shell as headphones, because it's a well known fact that when you hold one up to your ear, you can hear the sea. That concept fits really well with the theme "sounds of nature", so I continued working on that idea.
Feedback
Because I was stuck in quarantine for a week, I asked my teacher for feedback through Teams. He really liked the sea shell idea, but encouraged me to do more research and make more sketches to see if I can come up with more thoughtful concepts. He also gave me some tips that could help with brainstorming and thinking of new ideas. So with this feedback, I did some more researching and brainstorming.
Digital Sketches
After 1,5 weeks of not working on it because of the Interweek, I looked back on what I had so far and started making some digital sketches. I came up with 2 ideas: One where the hair turned into this beautiful piece of nature with plants, rivers and animals. The other idea was to let her hair flow into the ocean and use that sea shell idea I came up with earlier.
Feedback
I wasn't sure which idea to pick, because I really liked the flowers & plants idea, but I already drew something like this for the previous assignment, the book cover. I thought the sea idea would be a bigger challenge for me, because it's different from what I usually draw. I asked my teacher for his opinion and he agreed with me. He also advised me to make the sea shells bigger so that people get the idea better, and to make the face bigger too so that it doesn't get lost in the fold between the two pages. The hair can be bigger too, the text only has to be a small part of the page. And see if you can draw some decoration in the hair, like more sea shells, seaweed, coral or animals.
Final Sketch
I went on Pinterest and added some more inspiration to my moodboard. When I was looking for poses that really showed the flowy and relaxed theme, I remembered this drawing I made 1,5 years ago. So I took inspiration from that drawing and created a new sketch.
Drawovers
For the drawovers, I switched out my sketch with a classmate's sketch and gave them feedback. The classmate's feedback for me was to draw some little bubbles between the text to make it more like a real spread and not two separate things. She also gave me some examples of things I could draw in the hair.
I also gave the classmate feedback on her sketch. She chose the article about a poor child, so I gave her some tips like making the clothes of the girl look more worn out, because they're second-hand clothes. I also told her the illustration itself could be bigger, because just like our teacher told me, we could just put a small part of the text in the spread, the illustration can be a bigger part of the spread.
Finalising the illustration
After drawing the base of the illustration, I asked the teacher for more feedback. He liked the idea of not drawing a face, the calmness and relaxation is still very clear in the illustration. He told me not to put the small text in the middle of the page because of the fold. He suggested placing the text inside of the hair, and that gave me an idea.
I wanted to draw the title in the hair and make the words flow along with the waves of the hair. It was a real struggle to make the title readable, but by making some words bigger, thicker and giving them slightly different colors, it finally worked out.
I changed the color of the shirt to that orange color of the sea shells, because I didn't like the green color, it didn't fit in with the rest. I also really didn't like the text at the top, it felt more like 2 separate things rather than one big spread. So I drew some more water in the top right corner, and fitted the text around all the curves of the water.
Feedback
The teacher (and I) still didn't like the text, it still jumped out too much and didn't fit in with the illustration. So he suggested making the text the same colors as the illustration, so either blue or orange. Because I didn't know if I liked this minimalist style, the teacher said I should try giving her a face.
So first off, I gave the text a different color. I didn't like the blue, because the illustration already had a lot of blue. The orange text looked better because it balanced out the blue of the illustration.
I then tried to draw a face on the person, but decided to erase it because I didn't quite know how to draw a face in this minimalist style. The teacher and classmate also already told me that the faceless illustration was good too, so I just kept it that way.
End Result
Evaluation & Feedback
This project was definitely a challenge and I definitely challenged myself with the decisions I made in these few weeks. I usually don't really draw in this kind of style, so that was a fun experiment. It was also a long and difficult process to come up with a good, thoughtful concept but I'm pretty happy with the sea shell idea I came up with. I also really like the way I drew the title into the hair, I think that turned out really well. Overall it's not my favorite end result, but I'm still pretty happy with the final illustration.
The feedback of my teacher was very positive. "You really made some progress again. The text fits nicely with your illustration in the spread, and you make the right choices in the process, always finding a way to make the end result more and more powerful." He advised me to keep looking for ways to challenge myself for the rest of this schoolyear.
