10 Assignment: Two Spot Illustrations

Here are two spots from “The Dead One Fell,” as illustrated by Donivan Bonilla, who chose to illustrate two spots from a small portion of the story. This meant that when he laid out the illustrations, both had to fit on one spread alongside the text.

Donivan’s style is naturally graphic, and he leaned into the black and white, giving emphasis on a stylized character design and strong use of value. This is a good example of keeping your own style, even if it doesn’t seem like a traditional fit for the subject matter: many students in this assignment revert to something like looks like a fairytale– fancy dresses that feel like they are from an older era. Donivan modernized the folktale by making the illustrations in his own style, not bowing to the timeframe in which the story was written. His use of dramatic lighting adds drama and gives the figure, otherwise rendered rather flatly, a sense of real form. The digital medium makes it easy to draw with a transparent background, which, when saved as a .PNG file is preserved; this makes it easy to easily format when dropped into a page of text.

Because Donivan planned his second spot with a black background, this controlled how the page must be formatted for the final layout.

Because the darkness was necessary for the narrative, he extended the black throughout the page and over the gutter, bringing the two pages together. It’s imperative to leave room on either side of the page divide; this is the gutter. A good rule of thumb when laying out the gutter is to give a buffer of 1/2″ on either side of the divide; this area will be lost to binding. Any text or images should have another buffer of at least 1/2″ on either side of the gutter for natural formattting.

Notice that the illustrator used white text to pop against the black on the righthand side of the page. But he also added a bit of whimsy: the gradient he added on the text to make it look like it, too, is being lit by the candle: a clever detail that rewards the viewer.

(JMB= Dr. Boehman; AS= Amelia Stepnowski)

JMB: Why was the assignment for spot illustrations useful?

AS: It got us in the mindspace of professional illustrations for middle grade books, which I was forced to read a lot of as a kid and I would only be interested in if they had pictures, because I appreciated the art and different styles.

JMB: So you found the books more approachable because of the illustrations?

AS: Yes.

JMB: Did you grow up reading picture books as well?

AS: Yes, and I grew up being forced to read any kind of book. Picture books just made it easier for me to process, because I love stories, but just not words.

JMB: Interesting. So when you were a little kid, did you have any sense looking at the pictures that these would be the sorts of things you would like to make? I mean, did you like drawing as a little kid?

AS: Yeah of course. I’ve been drawing since I could remember, when I was ambidextrous. And my mom used to pull the crayons from my left hand and put them into my right hand.

JMB: In terms of thinking about your illustration portfolio: it seemed to me that you were really excited to try illustration. Do you feel like having these illustrations in black and white and in spots is something useful to have in your portfolio for agents and editors?

AS: Oh definitely. So I love color, so that’s what I would usually use. And if not, I would just do line art. So doing spots in black and white helped me a lot with the importance of value in creating art, because it has to be readable.

JMB: Did you find the value aspect of it to be challenging?

AS: Yes, especially as you can’t just use black and white unless you have that style. But I wanted to leave my comfort zone and work extra hard on trying to make it look the way I want.

JMB: Now that you dove in over the course of two assignments and three drawings for working in greyscale, do you feel like it helped you to think differently about how you use value when working in color?

AS: Yeah, putting color drawings into greyscale lets you see if the value is wrong. You don’t want what many of my professors have called “the dirty dishwater”–when there is not enough value differential.

JMB: Yeah, I call it “mud.” That’s a good trick to make sure your color value is on point. So how did you approach the assignment or what was your process?

AS: In working on Baba Yaga, a Slavic fairytale, I was excited because it was something i had wanted to do for a while. I’ve always seen versions of it in the media and had never gotten around to making one of my own. When I started, I had a little trouble with how to draw the witch, because I made her into a caricature of what the media has made witches into.

JMB: I remember that.

AS: So Professor Boehman suggested I try to find descriptions of her and also look into real elder people from Slavic countries, and honestly, I think the final result looks like someone you would see in real life, just slightly creepier.

JMB: Yeah, it reads as less cartoonish, less caricaturish.

AS: I mean, my style is slightly cartoony. You can tell it’s an illustration but I try to keep the proportions correct.

JMB: And the second spot was the iconic witch’s house.

AS: Yeah, the house with chicken legs. One version had one eye, the other had wings. And then I decided to combine a few of the sketches together to create the finished spot.

JMB: So once you had your sketches down, what was the process for making the finished drawing?

AS: Oh boy. So the line art was the easiest part. I had to take various descriptions off the first version of the story and off the internet and look up what those meant. For example, it described her having a hooked nose. But that doesn’t mean it was long and literally hooked. It refers to the bridge of the nose. It said that she had metal teeth and silver hair. So I tried to represent that as well. And how you imagine an old lady who lives by herself, with long nails and weird hands.

JMB: Because that’s what happens when a woman lives by herself. (Laughs)

AS: Haha, no. It’s what happens when you live by yourself in a magical house and eat children.

JMB: OK, that’s fair. You were working digitally with a new program, Adobe Fresco.

AS: Honestly, it doesn’t have as many tools as other drawing programs, but it’s hard to blend, so rendering was hard. It took a really long time.

JMB: I remember that being a frustration for you.

AS: But I am really proud of how it came out because it did take so many tries. Adding a little, erasing a little, trying to make it look smooth. Adding texture to the hair or nails or the knife. The lighting was hard because it was a separate rendering.

JMB: And you were particularly proud of the spool of string. And the hands look good.

JMB: If you could go back and do it differently, would you still use Fresco?

AS: I’d do it with the same program, but know that I know there are blender brushes, it would be easier. This was my first time using it.

JMB: Do you want to talk about the cultural references of this?

AS: Sure, my parents are Polish and Baba Yaga is one of the tales we were told. It’s just a connection to my roots and I like when I get to show off my roots because then I feel like my parents are a little proud of me for showing my culture.

JMB: Did you have any artists you were inspired by?

AS: Not really. I try to work from scratch without being influenced. I try to rely on my own research and experience. I am trying to do something original. Not relying on other people’s ideas.

JMB: Something that’s authentic to your own voice. What advice would you give to other students getting ready to do this assignment?

AS: Try your best, open yourself to other styles, and listen to others’ advice. I was very lucky to have the help that I did.

JMB: Did you find it difficult in this class to work with a professor who is acting as an editor or a client as opposed to just a professor? Where if you were given feedback you had to take it as much as possible.

AS: No, I don’t think so. I think it was very valuable if you are really considering going into the world of illustrations, and it helped me in the real world with internships I had. It was a really good idea to act in the role of the client.