IllustrationFriday: Sacrifice

Although the word “sacrifice” means wonders to me, and I could think of it in various profound ways, (please click here for that “take” on it), I will remain focused on my pursuit of illustration for children’s markets as opposed to deep or abstract painterly-type art.

My solution to the word “sacrifice” involves a child offering one of his crayons to a girl who has broken hers. It can be hard for small children to learn to sacrifice….hey, isn’t it hard for us all? Let’s face it: we can all be very childish sometimes when it comes to putting others first—especially when it may leave us with a different color crayon we didn’t beforehand plan on coloring with.

Since I am taking these weekly projects as a chance to experiment, here is my process for this one: 1. the sketch/thumbnail: 2. the final drawing (which is placed on top of the colors/textures): 3. flat color added: 4. textures (scanned fabrics) replace the flat color--and hues or saturation are adjusted as you can see. Also is interesting how much the texture adds to the look of it all: 5. Finally, I offset the color from the line a little, and revealed some of the white I put underneath. This created even more interest and the white adds a sort of highlight too. Notice also I decided a green background matches better and pops out the important yellow crayons more. Also since the yellow was the same value as their skin, I made this green a darker hue) : 6. In case you were curious, here it is without the white edges: 7. By the way, before all this I experimented with a different and simpler style--to have a single color for a whole kid (I decided against this and also realized a kid's face should never be blue. Kinda creepy.) :