Friday, October 29, 2010

The Suitcase - A Teeny, Tiny wordless picture book

I decided to add some color to my teeny, tiny wordless picture book.

I wasn't sure how I wanted to paint it.  Or if I even wanted it to remain wordless.  I couldn't think of any words that weren't already evident in the illustrations, so that was a pretty easy decision.  However, I was still left with wondering how to paint it.  I decided to try to stay with a somewhat limited palette.

I also decided to use particular colors to convey feelings.  Hopefully, they came through.
I used oranges and yellows to try to convey the little boys frustration.  I only used blue to convey how cold and what a bad idea running away is.   I used yellow to show the warmth he was feeling both from being back inside and from his mother's unconditional love.

Personally, I was quite happy with the drawings themselves (not sure about the painted versions), but I didn't get very many comments on the sketches, so I'm wondering,  do you guys like these illustrations?  Did the color help or detract?  Are the blue pages too jarring compared with the warm color pages?






2 comments:

  1. Michelle - I love the warm as well as the cool images and am really happy to see your color work with these limited palettes. I think the two sets might need something to keep them belonging together. One idea is to bring a bit of warmth into the cool images while keeping them predominately cool and to do the same with the warm images through color mixing. Or you could have some "color" (using the term loosely here--could be a neutral) be common to both sets. This might take some experimenting, but I think it would be worth the effort. Good luck!

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  2. I like Ann Marie's advice. The blue ones make me feel like he went out in a snowstorm--such a contrast with the warm colors. It's a sweet little story with good body language on the boy.My only other suggestion is to change the placement of the boy's arms in the last scene. At first glance they look like they are the Mom's arms although I realized they couldn't be because of their size.

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