Friday, August 29, 2008

Illustration Friday: Memories: THEN & NOW

You're probably wondering, "What am I looking at?"

Inspired by the Illustration Friday topic, "Memories," I dug out one of my composition books from grade school. The notebook was devoted to a catalogue of state facts (state tree, state flower, state nickname...). Throughout the notebook are doodles. Inexplicably, the page for "Oklahma" has a sketch of a boy spitting seeds with the caption "watermelon spitting contest!"

Above is the sketch from thirty years ago. Today I took another crack at the subject. It's encouraging to see that I've improved. (I have improved, right?!)

Below is the complete drawing. As I often do for Illustration Friday, I challenged myself to create an illustration in short order. I completed this in an hour and a half. Medium is acrylic with some colored pencil.

Here's some fascinating state facts from my research:
"Magnet Cove etc make AR a wonderful state!"
"AL has a statue in honor of a bug (boll weevil)"
"AK is the closses state to Russia"
"IA has the biggest popcorn-packing plant in the USA."
"People visit Las Vegas to get rinch??"

11 comments:

Kizz said...

Probably 5th grade, right? I know we had to learn the state capitals in 5th grade. What a treasure to have that notebook and be able to make these sorts of comparisons.

John B. Watson said...

Yeah, you've improved a wee bit. Cute idea to use for this week's Illustration Friday topic. Looks like your watermelon spitting kid could have been plucked off the cover of the Satuday Evening Post. Norman Rockwell would be proud. Impressive, considering the time limit!

INDIGENE said...

Great illustration and it looks like you always knew what you were going to be! :)

www.indigeneartforms.blogspot.com

Jen said...

How far you have come! Great idea.

Mrs. Chili said...

It's all about evolution, isn't it? This was fun.

Juan said...

Excellent concept for the this weeks theme. Cute illo!!

Anonymous said...

Wonderful idea! Your illo made me go back a visit my sketchbooks from when I was a child. Boy! How far we've come!

Bella Sinclair said...

Oh my gosh, I LOVE this! Yes, you've improved tremendously, but you know what's so fabulous about your grade school sketch? The bullet-like action of those seeds! And yes, people go to Las Vegas to get rinch! Heehee!

Andy J Smith illustration said...

Great pose! That really makes the whole illustration. BUT that old one from the archives really has something going for it too! I wish I'd saved more of mine.

damon said...

cool

Kristi Valiant said...

What a treasure that notebook is. Great expressions!