Found these, maybe they'll inspire you too.Khadija, the line drawings with the blue water color is the one I meant specifically. I was thinking, particularly where the witch tries to cast spells, the background can transcend reality a bit and become more mystical where it changes to something like this.
4 comments:
Hey Mariam,
I love the tree one! Its actually a nice combination of watercolor plus pen n ink. There is also a technique called Cross-hatching you can look into that as well. This will add a little more to abstraction and adds more depth to just plain water-colors.
These are wonderful--there's a lot of texture, dimension and depth in these examples. The Beat Owls are wonderful, and hilarious. Something to think about--folk tales tend to be weirdly humorous. I think humor helps tone down some of the darker elements. The artists should feel free to explore conveying this humor and whimsy.
Thinking about the notion of "tone" in oral situations might be helpful here. How people interpret the content of an utterance has much to do with how they interpret the tone. It is a cliche that it not always so much about what people say but how they say it. In a parallel sense, in a visual piece the colors/textures are the "how" of visual communication, the form, as it were. As Patty mentioned, manipulating the tone of these visual pieces through texture/color/etc. lends a certain kind of context to the piece and can be very effective in influencing how people respond to them even if some of the elements are dark.
Mmm you're right Khadija, there needs to be more line work here. I think it could do especially over the clothing, I can hardly get the colors to be dark enough without spoiling everything.
Very true about the illustrations having the power to convey meaning in a way that we can digest. Even as adults I think it's a bit difficult to visualize these stories in such a gruesome manner. Also, I've never felt like I've lost anything of the story by reducing the violence of it.
But every respect to those who can make a story seem as dark as they are. I know Hussein was saying earlier we shouldn't underestimate our audiences, even if they are young and perhaps a healthy variety within each story could do. I think we're all on a good path though of suggesting the darker sides of our tales rather than plastering blood everywhere, no?
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