Week 4

Craft: In order to make my illustration I first decided which picture I wanted to make into an illustration. After picking my favorite photograph I then started the process of working with Illustrator.

In order for a “.jpg” picture to open up in the Illustrator program, the picture and the illustration must always stay in the same folder.

Open the Illustrator program and then determine what size and what layout or orientation is best for the photograph. I choose a “new document” and selected 11x17 (Tabloid) for paper size and landscape orientation for layout.

Next, to get the photo into Illustrator, go into File/Place this allows for the photo to be in the program as long as the photo is always in the folder with the illustration.

To start illustrating the photo, it a good practice to open Windows/Workspace/Essentials, this makes sure all tools are set to the default mode so everything is how it always works. Then I enlarged and centered my photograph in the middle of the paper, holding “shift” down so my image stayed proportion.

Next, I started drawing with the “Pen Tool” by placing a dot around the entire outline of one shape of the shoe. I used the “tear off” feature of the “Pen Tool” so I could easily add more or less pen points.

If I needed to move the location of any of my points around the object I used the "Selection Tool" and then the “Direction Selection Tool.”

After I completed one object I would choose the color to “Fill” that object using the “Eyedropper Tool."

Then, I decided if I wanted the line around the object to have a “Stroke” around it. The large white box is the “fill” color and the box underneath with the black line around it is the “stroke” color box.

After all these steps where done with one object it would become a “Layer” that could be viewed in the “Layers Panel.”

When I completed a group of layers that where all in one area I “Grouped” the layers.

In a complicated illustration there will be hundreds of layers and by grouping them into smaller clusters it is much easily to manage all the layers. Once a layer is completed a good habit is to turn the layer invisible by clicking the “Eye” and then locking the layer by clicking the “Lock.” While working on the illustration it is also essential that the artwork be saved after a few layers have been completed. One-way is to go into File/Save or hit “Command + S” on the keyboard. For this illustration I started with the shoe and then made the fire and finally the background.

Composition: In this illustration the main focus point is the contrast between the dark shoe and the bright fire. In order for this point of focus to be enhanced I choose colors with a much darker value for the shoe and colors with a much lighter value for the fire. Also, for the yellow and orange of the fire I picked colors with the highest amount of saturation that I could.

Concept: The reason I made this photograph and turned it into an illustration is because I wanted to capture the spirit of the fire in a way that was unlike any other fire or flame I had previously seen. The fire in this particular illustration is one that almost runs ahead of it’s own self, instead of simply rising up in the air like normal. This action of sprinting in front of itself is the same thing a shoe does everyday it is on its owner’s foot. It goes ahead of itself with every step and so there is a parallel between the fire and the essence of the shoe.