The task for this exercise is to read a newspaper article (I chose one from an online magazine) and underline keywords that convey the meaning of the article. Then, I will read the article again, focusing on the selected keywords, and condensing the ones that I find more meaningful.
These chosen keywords will be the starting point for creating a related illustration.
A few mornings ago I was reading the online news, and focused on a few articles about the disastrous political situation of my home country. While reading the comments, I began following a debate about young Italians leaving the country due to the current unstable conditions, and decided to google the topic. I stumbled upon an article, and after reading it, I was inspired and chose it for my illustration task.
The article is in Italian, but I have translated the overall meaning of the piece.
The analysis can be found here:
I have condensed the keywords together and arranged four sentences. I will rewrite them here.
– chi parte oggi non tornerà in assenza di nuove opportunità. Esiste un mondo giovanile in movimento che il paese non riesce più a intercettare. l’Italia non è più attrattiva per gli italiani. Esportiamo giovani e laureati. –
Translated:
People leaving will not return unless better opportunities arise. There is a youth migration that the country is not able to intercept. Italy is not appealing for Italians anymore. We export young and highly educated people.
I was so inspired by the article that I began sketching my idea right away. I had everything in mind. However, I also wanted to add my personal feelings to this piece and added a key sentence .
With the keywords in place, it was time to move to the drawing board.
I had the scene framed in my mind so I did a quick sketch. I always start all my drawings like this, trying to roughly place all the characters, objects and important details in a scene so that I avoid the risk of forgetting something. Once this is done, I relax a moment and think where to move next.
I wanted the two main characters in the foreground and at the center of the scene. I chose a manual worker and a highly educated character of different sex because both have the same importance in society. I decided that the background should have as little details as possible to avoid distractions from the two characters. The central part of the scene depicts a road in perspective with the Italian border sign in the middle. The text will go on the upper middle part of the scene, above the post sign. I will not continue penciling and move directly to inking, because the characters will not be particularly detailed.
I blocked in the main details. At this point, I realized that his arm and hand are wrong and will provide to correct them later. My male character has a more menacing pose, showing more anger. I wanted to depict him as a hard worker from the way he keeps his heavy wrench on the shoulder. The State lost a valuable working resource. My female character is highly educated. I tried to depict her angry and proud of her accomplishments, by drawing her in an erect posture and chin up. I think this picture represents well a part of the Italian youth.
There might be political elections by the beginning of 2018, so I thought that this drawing could also serve as a flyer, spreading a message to the people that a part of the electorate is currently unhappy with youth policies and that, as a consequence, is taking a drastic measure by leaving the country. So for my color choice I wanted bright colors that would catch the viewers eye, and decided I would not use more than 3 colors ( in the end I chose five). I knew for sure that I wanted a color such as a yellow or red for the character’s skin and most of the background. The road would be a light gray and the frame at the top of the post sign black.
In the end I chose yellow because I think it looks much better as a skin tone. Both the characters will have a white tag with the word “expat” written on it. I have mentioned earlier that I wanted to leave the background free of the details as much as possible, but then I thought to add something that would move the viewer’s eye away from the image, giving a sense of departure. Planes seemed just ideal to me. I then continued to refine my characters and the signpost.
I used a texture effect for the background. For the text, I chose the words “you gave us nothing and from you we need to nothing else”. I had them in mind since the beginning.
The final layout
What went well
What went wrong
Key Steps in Illustration 