Leaving space
Posted on | June 28, 2012 | 2 Comments
This week’s IF entry arrives by an indirect route.
I was working on some ideas for another piece that was based on a quick sketch I did recently. I tried to develop the kernel of the idea into a full-colour illustration. Sometimes this comes together quickly. This time it was a struggle.
Here’s one of my efforts. I like the composition, but not the way the digital collage looks. Even though I use hand painted and printed elements, it just looks too digital to me. It’s kind of like that creepy motion-capture effect they use in movies like “Polar Express.” I decided to go back to my pieces and collage everything by hand.
Here’s the non-digital result, but only after stripping out a lot of excess. I took my frustration out for a walk this evening and realized I was waay overcomplicating this piece. If I want it to work, I have to redo it and vastly simplify it. Even the version above is too complicated — its back to the drawing board for this one.
Even though I had decided to take a different approach, I took a couple of quick scans of the collage. Which is when I saw something I actually did like. I isolated the section pictured at the top of the post — and discovered space. The pieces I think are successful usually have a sense of space, and a little of what painters sometimes call push-pull. They leave some space for the viewer, putting just enough in and leaving just enough out. Simple, simple, simple.
Comments
2 Responses to “Leaving space”
Leave a Reply
June 28th, 2012 @ 11:49 pm
Hi, I think I understand your frustration in these cases- I also very often find myself overcomplicating and overbraining things, especially when struggling for simplicity-
in the illustration above i like the overall atmosphere and the fox, but i maybe would leave the crab away, leaving the fox wandering alone.
good work, keep up!
June 30th, 2012 @ 12:42 pm
Thanks for the feedback Marco. It can be a struggle to find the simplicity sometimes, but I do love it!