Sunday, February 20, 2011

IF: "Layer"

I did this illustration for the Tomie dePaola Illustration Contest for the SCBWI Winter Conference in New York, end of Janruary. Alas it did not win- you can check out the winner on the SCBWI blog- here.
We had to illustrate the first few paragraphs of the classic story "Heidi" which describes her being taken up the mountain to stay with her crotchety grandfather- wearing "layers and layers" of her dresses in the summer sun.
This is NOT my favorite illustration- it isn't dynamic enough- the perspective is straight on, there isn't really anything exciting about it. I pulled back too far to get the village, the mountains, the flowers- I was so hooked on including all the "things" in the description, I forgot about the composition and the design.
Well..."lesson learned"!