Editorial Workshop - 06/10/2016

06/10/2016

The exercise of creating an illustration of a chosen news article and to work at a professional standard (meeting deadlines) wasn’t really a difficult task to be honest, as I do work to meet deadlines by prioritising my time management. I limit myself with what I would use to create my illustration in order to challenge myself, such as using a limited colour palette and be loose with my drawing, rather than spending a lot of time putting in details and polishing it, as I would usually have when I create artworks. This allows me to approach things from a different angle and it does shine a new perspective for me when it comes to illustrate the drawing for the exercise.

I had chosen the article that focuses on the natural disaster that struck Haiti, with disastrous floods and torrential rain. I chose to illustrate my drawing where it visually communicates the sadness and the destructive nature in order to stay relevant to the article as an illustration. Illustrating with limited colour palette as a way to challenge myself wasn’t as difficult as I thought, this is probably due to the fact that the idea of my illustration (in terms of the visuals) was a simple concept of a child standing in an area where it’s all desolate from the storm, which allows the use of limited colour palette to be easily optimised for use in the illustration.

I had spent roughly over an hour on my illustration and this is the result. The composition was kept simple and the use of limited colour palette was actually effective than I thought, limiting to the colours of black and grey, with a hint of blue. This may not look as polished compared to artworks I do which would take several hours or more, but the simplicity in its composition and visuals does brings in the tone very nicely. I only gave myself an hour to illustrate as a way to test my skills and to illustrate within a given timeframe, as deadlines could range from a few days, to a 24 hour/next day deadline. This would also allow me to see how much I could get done in an hour or so, to see if I am capable of such task, though I would say I would need more practice in order to get better at producing work quickly, however such skill to create artworks in very short time span will take time to master.

Reading the notes left on my work after exchanging feedback are comments regarding the visual imagery being conveyed through effective use of limited colour palette combined with a simple composition.

Feedback consists of –

“I like the limited palette and subtle colour blend.”

“Simple but effective, limited palette works well. Nice composition.”

“Very powerful imagery. Really sets the mood for the scene. Beautiful.”

“Great colours. Fits Perfectly.”

“Dark and decay, I like it! Great use of texture and shade.”

From these feedbacks are positive comments and there seems to be no constructive criticism (which I would of liked to see from the comments) that would of helped me to see what I could of have improve or change.

The exercise has taught me a few things about approaching things professionally as if we were working in the real world within the art industry, and that there’s not really an excuse to leave things at the last minute. I believe critical thinking is really important, since you don’t have a lot of time (depending on the brief and deadline) and must prioritise what’s important and manage your time accordingly, as short deadlines do exists.