Illustration - Wonderland
Title : Wonderland
Medium : Ink, watercolor, and illustration board Size : 15 inches x 10 inches, 2 panels Date : April, 2022 Exhibition Text :
Inspired my John Tenniel's Alice in Wonderland illustrations, I wanted to create opposing pieces that show how mental health and substance abuse is often glamorized in media. Many TV shows and movies, oftentimes aimed at teenagers, show these issues in an unrealistic way, and I wanted to show the difference between how they are portrayed versus how it really feels. Using ink and watercolor, I aimed to create a whimsical, but also dark set of pieces that reflected these feelings.
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Inspiration :
My inspiration for this piece was the original Alice in Wonderland illustrations by John Tenniel. I have a copy of the original story and illustrations that I was given as a gift, and I really enjoy looking through it and seeing how the style reflects different aspects of the story as it continues. While some parts of it are bright and happy looking, others are dark and gloomy. In my own piece, I want to use a similar sense of contrasting moods in order to get my thoughts across. I also want to include the same sense of magical realism that is shown in the Alice stories. It shows things like talking plants and animals, food that makes you change sizes, and many other things. Everyone living inside Wonderland treats it as normal, and only Alice is confused, as she comes from a world without magic.
Style-wise, I really love Tenniel's use of line work and inking. Although some of his pieces are colored, a large majority of them only have black line art. Since he is not relying on color and shading, he uses very careful line work and crosshatching to show the form of the figures. As shown in the piece to the right, forms like Alice's dress and chair are given dimension through the use of line. In order to create the illusion of a 3D object in space, he uses very heavy crosshatching in the areas in shadow, and contrasts it with a lack of hatching in the areas in light. Even though he is not using any colors or values other then black ink on white paper, the piece looks as fully rendered as a painting or colored illustration might. In my own piece, I want to replicate this use of crosshatching and contrast of line. Although I am going to use watercolor, I want to minimize the amount of shading I do with the painting, and rely mostly on line work. The reason I want to use color as opposed to sticking to black and white is to push the contrast between the two pieces as far as possible, using brighter hues in one, and darker, more muted hues in the other.
Planning :
I already had an idea on mind going into the planning of this piece, so I didn't have a super difficult time getting started. My main concept was to show a tea party, similar to the one in the story with Alice and the Mad Hatter, in two different states, and the objective of this project is to create opposing pieces. In the first piece, I wanted to create a whimsical, almost euphoric scene, filled with magical elements such as the food and drinks that make you change size. On this side, it would be showing the way mental health issues are seen as euphoric and fun, instead of something that can be harmful. For the other piece, I wanted to show the aftermath of the party, with things broken and spilled everywhere. It would be the same scene, but shown from a different angle, both literally and metaphorically.
To begin planning, I wrote down the elements from John Tenniel's illustrations and the Alice books that I wanted to include. These were things like tea sets, roses, crochet, magical food and drinks, playing cards, etc. From here I planned out how I wanted to change all the objects based on the positive vs negative piece. For example, the negative piece had broken ceramics, dead plants, and spilled food and drink. On the positive, it would be the opposite. I did some sketches of these objects to capture the mood and concepts that I wanted to portray. I also made some thumbnail sketches before starting on the final sketches.
To begin planning, I wrote down the elements from John Tenniel's illustrations and the Alice books that I wanted to include. These were things like tea sets, roses, crochet, magical food and drinks, playing cards, etc. From here I planned out how I wanted to change all the objects based on the positive vs negative piece. For example, the negative piece had broken ceramics, dead plants, and spilled food and drink. On the positive, it would be the opposite. I did some sketches of these objects to capture the mood and concepts that I wanted to portray. I also made some thumbnail sketches before starting on the final sketches.
Process :
SKETCH :
The first step that I took in creating this piece was to make the two sketches. I did this digitally as opposed to on paper, as it was a lot easier to move around different elements and make edits quickly. The program I used was Procreate, which has a perspective tool that I utilized. This helped me to create a consistent environment since I didn't have any one reference I was basing it off of, and instead took bits and pieces from a lot of different references until I created something new on my own. I ended up using a two point perspective, and played around with the settings until I found something that would work well for what I needed. Once I was at this point, I started with the "negative" piece by blocking in the larger elements, such as the table, chair, and walls. The perspective tool came in handy, as I was able to lock my lines to the guide if needed, making it a lot easier to be consistent. After the main shapes were in place, I went over some of the more rigid lines from using the perspective guide and free handed them to create a more natural look, especially for things like the tablecloth or bricks on the walls. Since I already knew what other things I wanted to add, I continued drawing in the different elements, starting with the bigger stuff and working smaller. I looked at a lot of Tenniel's illustrations, especially the ones depicting the tea parties and more magical elements. Replicating these details allowed me to keep a connection to the Alice stories and illustrations, while also creating something that is my own separate piece. For shapes that weren't cubes or squared, which was pretty much everything, I would create a cube using the perspective tool and then draw the item within this cube. This allowed me to keep with the perspective while still being accurate with things like teapots or cakes. I added the figure, which is Alice, and was done with the first sketch. Once I finished the first sketch, I started to work on the second one. Since I already knew the elements that would be on it, I only did the main structures, like the walls furniture, and a couple details. I was just planning on sketching in by hand once I had it on paper, mostly to save time. |
TRANSFERRING :
After the sketches were finished digitally, I had to find a way to transfer them onto the illustration board. At first, I was going to do a graphite transfer. I've done this a lot in the past, and it just consists on me printing out the sketch, covering the back in graphite, and tracing it onto the new paper. It works really well for smaller or less detailed pieces, but I don't think it would've been effective in this one, as I don't have any paper that would be big enough to print out and fit to the 15 x 10 inch board, and it has a lot of small details that would get lost. Instead, I used a grid to transfer the sketch. To do this, I drew a 1 inch grid on the boards, and then added one to the digital sketch. From here, I just repeated the sketch onto the illustration board, paying attention to the lines in relation to the grid. Although I did have most of the details down in the digital sketch for the first piece, I only had the main structural objects in the second, and hand drew them on afterwards. Since I already knew what was there and what it would look like, it made more sense to save myself the time. |
INKING :
For the inking of this piece, I decided to use a Micron inking pen the was a size 0.25 mm. I wanted to go with the smallest pen I had so that I could get the same level of detail as Tenniel. After transferring the sketches to my illustration board, I got started. I began with some of the smaller items, like teacups and food, so that I could get used to the techniques I was using. Once I sort of got the hang of it, I worked from the biggest parts, like the walls and tables, back down to the smaller things. I was constantly looking back on Tenniel's work as I was working, and I think this really helped for it to look the way it does. I pretty quickly came up with a process that worked well for me, and I used this throughout the whole thing. I started by using a kneaded eraser to partially erase the pencil sketch in a small section. From here, I would go over the sketch with my ink pen and make the basic outlines and shapes of everything within that section. From here, I would either expand out to another section or work on the shading of that part. Before shading, I would make sure the sketch was completely erased underneath the ink so that I wouldn't mistake the pencil for the line work. Then, I began shading using differing techniques based on the shape and form of the object. For the flatter surfaces and objects, I would focus on crosshatching and laying the straighter lines. On curved, rounder surfaces and objects, I used more varied, curved lines. I pinpointed a light source on each piece at the beginning of the process, and used this to base my shading off of. Tenniel uses very harsh, dark shadows, and I wanted to do this in my own work. I created a lot of shadows from the items onto the surfaces they were sitting on, as well as on the objects themselves. I had to push myself a lot more then I expected I would have to, but I am happy with how it turned out. I wanted to show the high contrast between the super dark shadows and highlights from the white of the paper, and had to go back and darken a lot of parts while I was working. I also made sure to add texture on different surfaces, like the bricks and wood, so that it looked more like the objects I was trying to show. I continued this process to erasing, inking, and shading, jumping around the piece, until I eventually finished.
For the inking of this piece, I decided to use a Micron inking pen the was a size 0.25 mm. I wanted to go with the smallest pen I had so that I could get the same level of detail as Tenniel. After transferring the sketches to my illustration board, I got started. I began with some of the smaller items, like teacups and food, so that I could get used to the techniques I was using. Once I sort of got the hang of it, I worked from the biggest parts, like the walls and tables, back down to the smaller things. I was constantly looking back on Tenniel's work as I was working, and I think this really helped for it to look the way it does. I pretty quickly came up with a process that worked well for me, and I used this throughout the whole thing. I started by using a kneaded eraser to partially erase the pencil sketch in a small section. From here, I would go over the sketch with my ink pen and make the basic outlines and shapes of everything within that section. From here, I would either expand out to another section or work on the shading of that part. Before shading, I would make sure the sketch was completely erased underneath the ink so that I wouldn't mistake the pencil for the line work. Then, I began shading using differing techniques based on the shape and form of the object. For the flatter surfaces and objects, I would focus on crosshatching and laying the straighter lines. On curved, rounder surfaces and objects, I used more varied, curved lines. I pinpointed a light source on each piece at the beginning of the process, and used this to base my shading off of. Tenniel uses very harsh, dark shadows, and I wanted to do this in my own work. I created a lot of shadows from the items onto the surfaces they were sitting on, as well as on the objects themselves. I had to push myself a lot more then I expected I would have to, but I am happy with how it turned out. I wanted to show the high contrast between the super dark shadows and highlights from the white of the paper, and had to go back and darken a lot of parts while I was working. I also made sure to add texture on different surfaces, like the bricks and wood, so that it looked more like the objects I was trying to show. I continued this process to erasing, inking, and shading, jumping around the piece, until I eventually finished.
WATERCOLOR :
Before I started the actual painting process, I added a wash of color on each piece to tone the paper. For the negative piece, this was a blue color, and for the positive it was a orange color. I let this dry completely, and then got to painting. At first, I was planning on making two separate color palettes, but I found that having the toned paper created a similar effect when the colors were put on top. Since watercolor is somewhat transparent, the color beneath it comes through and tints it a little bit. I used this to my advantage, and created one set of colors and then switched off between the pieces, painting the common objects and figures. To pick out the colors, I looked at some of Tenniel's colored pieces. He used a lot of light pastel colors, so I wanted to do something similar, although I was planning exaggerate the saturation in both ways at least a little bit to highlight the contrast. I eventually found a watercolor palette that I had that consisted of mostly bright and saturated colors, with a few other that were less so. It was a lot of blues, pinks, and yellows, which I thought would fit the painting. Once I had these picked out, and finally started. I used pretty diluted versions of colors so that the wash underneath would show through. I started by painting some of the bigger areas of the paper, like Alice, the curtains, or the table. Although Tenniel's artworks are very light on the color, I found that this look didn't really work well with mine. I layered some of the colors more to get a deeper color, and would go back over with the original wash color if I found the first layer was getting lost. This helped the painting to become more cohesive with itself, as well as the opposite painting. Although the colors are somewhat different because of the color wash, they still have the same base color, only differing in hue. The difference is big enough to show the contrast between the night and daytime, but not to stark that it looks like two different color palettes. After getting a lot of the bigger areas of color down, I went into some of the smaller details. I found that these details where what helped pull the piece together, because without the pops of color it appeared very plain and empty. I continued in the process of painting, switching between the painting to make sure the color was consistent, until I was eventually done.
Before I started the actual painting process, I added a wash of color on each piece to tone the paper. For the negative piece, this was a blue color, and for the positive it was a orange color. I let this dry completely, and then got to painting. At first, I was planning on making two separate color palettes, but I found that having the toned paper created a similar effect when the colors were put on top. Since watercolor is somewhat transparent, the color beneath it comes through and tints it a little bit. I used this to my advantage, and created one set of colors and then switched off between the pieces, painting the common objects and figures. To pick out the colors, I looked at some of Tenniel's colored pieces. He used a lot of light pastel colors, so I wanted to do something similar, although I was planning exaggerate the saturation in both ways at least a little bit to highlight the contrast. I eventually found a watercolor palette that I had that consisted of mostly bright and saturated colors, with a few other that were less so. It was a lot of blues, pinks, and yellows, which I thought would fit the painting. Once I had these picked out, and finally started. I used pretty diluted versions of colors so that the wash underneath would show through. I started by painting some of the bigger areas of the paper, like Alice, the curtains, or the table. Although Tenniel's artworks are very light on the color, I found that this look didn't really work well with mine. I layered some of the colors more to get a deeper color, and would go back over with the original wash color if I found the first layer was getting lost. This helped the painting to become more cohesive with itself, as well as the opposite painting. Although the colors are somewhat different because of the color wash, they still have the same base color, only differing in hue. The difference is big enough to show the contrast between the night and daytime, but not to stark that it looks like two different color palettes. After getting a lot of the bigger areas of color down, I went into some of the smaller details. I found that these details where what helped pull the piece together, because without the pops of color it appeared very plain and empty. I continued in the process of painting, switching between the painting to make sure the color was consistent, until I was eventually done.
Experimentation :
A lot of the experimentation that I did was before beginning the actual piece. The main thing I experimented with was the inking process and watercolor. For inking, I've used both ink with a fountain pen as well as inking pens, but I wanted to test both of them out to see what would work best for this piece. To test this, I created a couple of simple sketches of things that are in artwork, such as teacups and food, as well as a couple fabric samples and one of the character studies I had done of Alice. Once I had the sketches, I went over them with the two types of inking that I was testing. I tried my best to replicate Tenniel's inking style, using crosshatching in order to show form and dimension. ***
After testing the inking, I went onto the watercolor. I used to use watercolor paints all the time, so I'm fairly familiar with the medium, but I wanted to try out different color palettes and techniques to eventually use on the final images. To come up with color palettes, I played around with a lot of the watercolor palettes I had already. I have a lot of smaller palettes with only a few colors, and they are usually pretty cohesive. I eventually found one that I liked that had a lot of bright pinks, yellows, and blues, along with some darker, more muted colors. I knew I wanted the colors to be the same in each piece, but I wanted to contrast the saturation and values to reflect the mood and time of day. To do this, I planned on putting a wash of color underneath the entire painting. I tried out some different colors - blues and purples for the negative side and pinks and oranges for the positive - and eventually found a shade of blue and orange that I liked. I put some of the color palette over top, and it gave me the effect I was looking for. Although they come from the same base colors, they differ enough that they won't look the same. I originally was planning on making two separate palettes altogether, but found this would make them more cohesive. Since the two paintings are of the same thing, but at a different time and angle, I wanted to make sure the colors looked similar enough to each other, but still distinguishable.
At this point, I had already finished the sketches, so I printed out thumbnail versions of them onto some thicker card stock. Doing this allowed me to map out the colors and where I wanted them to be, that way I wasn't making it up as I went. This wasn't a super difficult process, but it definitely made me think about the way colors work together and how they would look the most cohesive. My color palette was made of primary colors, so it didn't limit me very much, but I wanted to make sure I didn't go too far and make it look muddy as opposed to intentionally saturated or dull. To do this, I would pick out just 3-4 colors at a time and work with these, and eventually found a thumbnail that I liked. I used this as a reference as I worked on the painting process.
After testing the inking, I went onto the watercolor. I used to use watercolor paints all the time, so I'm fairly familiar with the medium, but I wanted to try out different color palettes and techniques to eventually use on the final images. To come up with color palettes, I played around with a lot of the watercolor palettes I had already. I have a lot of smaller palettes with only a few colors, and they are usually pretty cohesive. I eventually found one that I liked that had a lot of bright pinks, yellows, and blues, along with some darker, more muted colors. I knew I wanted the colors to be the same in each piece, but I wanted to contrast the saturation and values to reflect the mood and time of day. To do this, I planned on putting a wash of color underneath the entire painting. I tried out some different colors - blues and purples for the negative side and pinks and oranges for the positive - and eventually found a shade of blue and orange that I liked. I put some of the color palette over top, and it gave me the effect I was looking for. Although they come from the same base colors, they differ enough that they won't look the same. I originally was planning on making two separate palettes altogether, but found this would make them more cohesive. Since the two paintings are of the same thing, but at a different time and angle, I wanted to make sure the colors looked similar enough to each other, but still distinguishable.
At this point, I had already finished the sketches, so I printed out thumbnail versions of them onto some thicker card stock. Doing this allowed me to map out the colors and where I wanted them to be, that way I wasn't making it up as I went. This wasn't a super difficult process, but it definitely made me think about the way colors work together and how they would look the most cohesive. My color palette was made of primary colors, so it didn't limit me very much, but I wanted to make sure I didn't go too far and make it look muddy as opposed to intentionally saturated or dull. To do this, I would pick out just 3-4 colors at a time and work with these, and eventually found a thumbnail that I liked. I used this as a reference as I worked on the painting process.
Critique :
Similarities May Include :
- Detailed line work and inking. While creating my piece, I tried my best to replicate the line art techniques the Tenniel used. His work shows a lot of very fine lines to create intricate details that you might not be able to with paint or other mediums. I focused on each object individually and did my best not to rush anything and focus on all of the details. Like Tenniel's pieces, I made sure the whole work was filled and had very little empty spaces.
- Shading using line art as opposed to color. A lot of artwork and illustrations I see have line art that, while it is detailed, doesn't add a lot of shading and instead color is used for this. In Tenniel's artwork however, much of it is dependent on line art to show forms through lighting and shadows. In my work, I replicated his techniques, such as crosshatching and layering the ink, to have a similar effect. Although the art style is not the same, the inking style connects my work to Tenniel's.
- The characters and universe the pieces are set in. Seeing as I was inspired by the Alice in Wonderland books and illustrations, I set my piece in the same world. Tenniel uses magical realism to show a world that is eerily similar to ours, yet so vastly different. I did my best to replicate this, but in smaller ways since I only had two illustrations and not multiple books. I added things like the magical food and rink, the Cheshire cat, and the talking flowers.
Differences May Include :
- How color is used in pieces. Many of Tenniel's works are just ink on paper, without any color and just relying on line work. Though he does still have a lot of work with color, the way he uses it is different. Tenniel uses mostly lighter, less saturated colors, and doesn't add any shading with the color. In my own piece, I used darker and more saturated colors, depending on the mood I was trying to show. I also did use color to add shading, mostly to exaggerate the lighting and show the time of day more clearly.
Reflection :
I had a really fun time throughout the entire process of this artwork. I really love doing illustration and have taken a couple classes on it, so I was able to use those skills I had learned and apply them to these pieces. I was also able to develop and improve upon a lot of skill that I haven't done in a long time. I used to use watercolor all the time, so I somewhat knew what I was doing in the beginning. Doing experimentation with it before I started the final pieces helped me a lot to brush up on the skills I used to use pretty often, and allowed me to make sure my techniques would be effective while working. I also found that this piece helped me develop a better eye for detail, since it is based off of an existing story. I was able to add a lot of little details that have some sort of meaning in the story that not everyone would notice. Adding all of these details helped me to become a lot more patient with my work and rush a lot less. I found that with line art and ink, there was no way I could make it look good and still get it done quickly. I have a tendency to try and get everything done as soon as possible instead of enjoying the process and focusing on all the little things. This piece helped me to improve at this since I had to pay attention to anything because if I messed anything up, especially the inking, the was no way to reverse it. My inspiration for this project was the original Alice in Wonderland illustrations by John Tenniel. I have a copy of the book with these illustrations in it, and I love looking through it and seeing the way magical realism is portrayed through artwork. I wanted to replicate this, as well as the heavily detailed line work and shading that show the figures and forms in an almost 3D way. I did a lot of experimentation and sketching ahead of time to find what techniques would be the more effective in replicating this inking style, and I'm super happy with the way it turned out. I did encounter some challenges throughout the process though, and a lot of it was in the beginning stages. I usually have a pretty difficult time starting sketches, and I found this one particularly difficult due to the detailed subject matter. I had a hard time finding things that would fill the space while also being accurate the the Alice stories and the message I wanted to portray. Something that helped me a lot with this issue was just looking through the book I have with the original illustrations and then taking pictures and notes on the things I wanted to include. This also helped me come up with ideas in general and I was able to come up with more interesting things then what I had originally planned. This ties in with previous projects, specifically ones I had done in an illustration class I took at MIAD. One assignment we had was to create an Olympics poster using a fictional universe that already existed. Doing this forced me to do a lot of research into the universe I chose and make sure it was accurate and made sense. This carried over to the illustration project because in both, I wasn't really able to make things up to make it easier for myself. Instead, I had to push myself to make pieces that looked like they belonged in the Alice in Wonderland universe. This made it look a lot more interesting since I added in a lot of things that I never would have thought of without doing extra research. My favorite part of these pieces is probably the line art. I spent a lot of time making sure it looked accurate to Tenniel's artwork, and I really love how it turned out. I've done different types of line art before, but not really with full scenes and environments like in this one. Because of this I had to figure out what type of line would make it look accurate the the form and texture of the object, and I had a really fun time experimenting with this and implementing it into the final works. My least favorite part, on the other hand, was coming up with the composition and perspective. Although it was something that I needed to do in order for the pieces to look consistent and accurate, I struggled a lot with it and would have much rather been working on something more interesting. There wasn't any part of this process that I really hated, and it was mostly the boring or difficult parts that I didn't like very much. In conclusion, I hope that people can look at my art and see where the illustrations are coming from and the world it takes place in. I also want people to see the contrast between the pieces and how it is showing the way mental health is portray in society versus how it really feels. I did my best to show this contrast through color, line art, and subject matter, and hope this message carries on when viewers see this.
ACT Questions :
Clearly explain how you are able to identify the cause effect relationship between your inspiration and its effect on your artwork?
Using John Tenniel as inspiration, I tried to replicate the use of line work and crosshatching to show contrast in values to create dynamic and dimensional forms.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
John Tenniel's artwork shows heavy contrast between the positive and negative sides of Wonderland, a world that seems so beautiful and perfect at first, but has many dark secrets.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
Mental health issues are often glamorized by media and seen as peaceful, fun, or exciting. In reality, it can cause a lot of dark thoughts and feelings, and often just feel numb.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Use of shading through a contrast in ink and line work can create the illusion of form and dimension in a way that might not be achieved through other mediums.
Using John Tenniel as inspiration, I tried to replicate the use of line work and crosshatching to show contrast in values to create dynamic and dimensional forms.
What is the overall approach the author has regarding the topic of your inspiration?
John Tenniel's artwork shows heavy contrast between the positive and negative sides of Wonderland, a world that seems so beautiful and perfect at first, but has many dark secrets.
What kind of generalizations and conclusions have you discovered about people, ideas, culture, etc. while you researched your inspiration?
What is the central idea or theme around your inspirational research?.
Mental health issues are often glamorized by media and seen as peaceful, fun, or exciting. In reality, it can cause a lot of dark thoughts and feelings, and often just feel numb.
What kind of inferences did you make while reading your research?
Use of shading through a contrast in ink and line work can create the illusion of form and dimension in a way that might not be achieved through other mediums.
Citations (in MLA Format)
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/john-tenniel-an-introduction#:~:text=The%20Victorian%20artist%20John%20Tenniel,)%2C%20written%20by%20Lewis%20Carroll.
https://medium.com/alice-s-adventures-in-wonderland/sir-john-tenniel-s-classic-illustrations-of-alice-in-wonderland-2c3bbdca3a77
https://medium.com/alice-s-adventures-in-wonderland/sir-john-tenniel-s-classic-illustrations-of-alice-in-wonderland-2c3bbdca3a77