I realise I am only supposed to talk about one piece of imagery but I really love and admire all the illustrations that Mary Blair did for the book "I can fly" by Ruth Krauss. The book is about a little girl interacting with different animals in different places. I love everything about the illustrations, the colour, textures, backgrounds and compositions. The scale and textures are always changing as you go through the pages and the colours are always bold and exciting.
One thing I have learnt from these images is that you can layer textures. I realised this from looking at the swimming pages where the water and plants are layered over the characters. It gives the image a printed feel and also gives the impressions of the character being underwater. This technique is also used in the owl page. The trees in the background are a lighter colour to the trees in the foreground. This helps create depth in the image. I think this technique could be easily done using digital media by altering the opasity of a layer. This is something I hope to experiment with in future pieces of work.
Something else I have learnt from these images is that backgrounds don't always have to be solid and complex, they can be implied. In the beach image where the little girl is pretending to be a clam, the background is made up of wavy shapes and dots to give the impression of sand. This is effective because it adds both texture and depth to the image. The areas of white space just seem like areas where the sun is shining. I've always struggled with backgrounds so these images have helped me realise that they aren't such a big issue.
I also like how in some images the edges of the backgrounds are left as messy brush strokes like in the chicken page. This makes the image feel more handmade, personal and also makes it more interesting to look at. I have been attempting to use more printed backgrounds recently but I deffinatly need to collect many more textures and experiment with paints rather than just printed backgrounds. Paints give a might richer colour and also a smother finish which could come in handy for many future illustrations.
The colours in these illustrations are really lovely. They are at times wrong for cirtain animals, such as the blue chickens and bright pink fish. However the colours still give an organic feel to the illustrations. They don't seem too over the top for the images and still feel quite subtle. I think the colours I have used in "my nana knits cats" are a bit much at times. I need to learn from these images and experiment with more complimenting colours.
Another thing I like about these images is how in some pages the child's outfit matches the animal she is interacting with. This would make it clear to a child that she is pretending to be the animal. It also makes the image more fun for a child as they get to see the similarites between the animal and the child. I think my favourite example of this is the chicken page where the girl has a white ruffled dress, pink bow and red shoes matching in with the colours on the chicken to the left of the page. I really need to do more character and clothing drawings as clothing is something I really struggle with.
Finally I want to talk about the anatomy of the little girl character in these images. I've always struggled with anatomy and worried that it wasn't right in my own drawings etc. These images have taught me that you don't have to over think anatomy. The little girl character is made up of simple shapes. Her feet are far too small but this dosen't matter. she is always a smooth shape with no sharp edges making her seem more soft and friendly. It's also obvious that she is a child by her larger head. Also sometimes her head shape and features seem distorted, however this dosen't spoil the images and fits into what she is doing in the image like in the terrier page.
I really need to take this on board! It dosen't always have to be perfect! It dosen't matter if both arms are coming out of one side of a character, or if both eyes are on the same side of the head. These imperfections can make a character stand out from the rest.
In conclusion I feel that the illustrations in this book will have the biggest impact on my working method. Mainly in backgrounds and character anatomy.
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