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Illustrating Rain, Droplets and Rainclouds
A collection of art featuring rain, some realistic, some cartoonish, some stylised.
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Illustrating Slopes and Hills
What it says on the tin.
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An Entire World In A Single Illustration
Sometimes illustrators want to convey an entire storyworld within a single scene. These are useful as establishing shots in stories. Some call these illustrations ‘panoptic‘. Panoptic refers to ‘showing or seeing the whole at one view’. Panoptic narrative art is often a bird’s eye view. The ‘camera’ is above. This is the art world’s equivalent of an all-seeing […]
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Interesting Ceilings In Illustration
EXPOSED BEAMS CATHEDRAL CEILINGS Header: Interiors of The Winter Palace, The Small Winter Garden of Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna illustratrated by Konstantin Andreyevich Ukhtomsky (1818-1881)
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Rocks, Stones, Brick, Paving and Concrete In Art
I grew up in Christchurch, New Zealand, and occasionally visited The Christchurch Art Gallery. In the viewing room to the left of the entrance hall there was an especially memorable painting. Every now and then I come across a piece of art which takes my breath away, and this was one of the first. When […]
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The Home Hearth in Art and Storytelling
In his book Home, Witold Rybczynski describes a typical European house: Heating was primitive. Houses in the sixteenth century had a fireplace or cookstove only in the main room, and no heating in the rest of the house. In winter, this room with its heavy masonry walls and stone floor was extremely cold. Voluminous clothing, […]
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Umbrellas In Art And Storytelling
The oldest umbrellas, as we know them today, were used not to keep off the rain but to avoid the sun.
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Haystacks In Art and Storytelling
Haystacks and haybales are multivalent symbols in storytelling, utilised in horror as well as in cosy pastoral stories.
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Death Symbolism in Art and Literature
For Death must be somewhere in a society; if it is no longer (or less intensely) in religion, it must be elsewhere; perhaps in this image which produces Death while trying to preserve life. Contemporary with the withdrawal of rites, Photography may correspond to the intrusion, in our modern society, of an asymbolic Death, outside […]
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Archways In Composition
As a framing device, arches, archways and arcs are useful to illustrators. Below are various examples of archways in art and illustration.
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Fireworks In Art and Illustration
How do artists and illustrators depict fireworks?
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Holidays and Camping In Art And Picturebooks
Scholars who study holidays and tourism classify holidays into five broad types. Which type(s) do you prefer? And how are holidays commonly depicted across children’s literature?
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What is the atomic style of illustration?
The atomic style of illustration is closely related to ‘ligne claire’. In French this means ‘clear line’. The ligne claire/atomic style of drawing was created and pioneered by Hergé (real name Georges Prosper Remi). Hergé was Belgian and lived from 1907 to 1983. He is best known for creating The Adventures of Tintin. Hergé’s style […]
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Depicting Motion In Illustration
How do illustrators convey motion when creating static images?
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Animals Riding Other Animals In Illustration
When I watched Rise of the Planet of the Apes I was disturbed for an unlikely reason. It wasn’t the dystopian aspect of a world where humans were no longer top of the food chain. The resonant image for me was when the apes were riding horses. I immediately checked myself. Why am I slightly […]