Illustration is a beautiful word.
At the start of writing this paper I looked up the word illustration, not in the dictionary ––
on their website (take that, Future of the Book). I loved the “archaic” definition that I noticed
first, “the action of making illustrious or honored or distinguished.” (1) I thought it was funny,
that the romantic definition of the word was put up at the top for some reason, while the more
practical and often used definition that I was expecting to find was pushed all the way down to
the bottom. It made the bland definition they gave seem even more utilitarian, “a picture or
diagram that helps make something clear or attractive.”
Word’s definition is quite a bit better, right at the top it gives us the definition that I was
looking for in the first place, “A picture that complements text –– a drawing, picture,
photograph, or diagram that accompanies and complements a printed, spoken, or electronic text.”
All of the things that are mentioned in that very apt definition are in the middle of a huge
transition right now; the great analog to digital transition. Artists in the multimedia world are
starting to forgo the paper format all together and instead, they are doing all of their creating with
a computer and a drawing tablet. The technology is becoming inexpensive enough so that even
poor students like me can afford to buy quality equipment.
Photographs are almost completely in the digital format; Nikon has even quit making
most of their lower end film cameras. Diagrams have been predominantly digitally formatted for
years now. With high resolution monitors and projectors dropping in price as I write this, the cost
of printing anything out is starting to weigh heavy on the decision to try your luck at quality
prints, especially when you could easily display on screen and not have to worry about mishaps.
So yes, many of the ways that people can create illustrations are changing, but illustration
itself isn’t really changing. In fact, other than innovations in the method of capturing or creating
them, illustrations haven’t changed much in the last 40,000 years.
This picture was taken in Spain, the cave
was discovered in the fifties, but it was just recently that they found these paintings. The actual
paintings have yet to be dated because of legal reasons, but “organic material found next to the
paintings was dated 44,000 years old.”(2)
These drawings are of seals according to the article, and the people who painted/drew
them would have eaten these seals as a main part of their diet. Although there are no words
accompanying this artwork, it defiantly tells a story. In the bellow picture there is a feeling of
motion caught in the stone and charcoal, and I think this is an even better example of an
illustration that isn’t paired up with a text.
This charcoal drawing of a pride of lions is perhaps the most spectacular among the many images
of ice age predators found at Chauvet Cave, France. (3)
This picture, as the caption mentions was
found in France. There is some debate about the
age but for our purposes a thousand years more or
less doesn’t really matter and it was dated to at
least 30-35thousand years old. The artwork is
awesome and it is a brilliant example of early
illustration.
My intent with showing these things is not to present a history, but to show an example of
illustration that was drawn at least 30,000 years ago. And now I want you to compare it to this
image done recently in an all
digital medium.
As you can see, the
pictures are quite similar;
considering that they were created thousands of years apart, one with stone and charcoal, and the
other on an IPad, these two drawings ended up very similar in appearance.
So as I said before, the methods of illustrating are the things that change most about the
art form that is illustration. With those changes come new limitations in some cases but overall
new abilities will arrive in even greater numbers. Some limitations include the expenses of
buying electronic equipment for the next generations to learn with, but when you look rationally
at this issue, there are many fixes for the problems that might arise. For example, we already
spend money on textbooks and supplies. If that money wasn’t needed as much for traditional
forms of educational tools and supplies, it could be reassigned to help pay for the electronic
counterpart that would be taking its place.
IPads might be too expensive right now to be practical for public classrooms to use on a
large scale, but there are android and pc versions of tablets coming out all the time, and they’re
very affordable and capable of managing the same tasks. And if kids were able to have access to
these tablets, they could have their textbooks on them along with their software for art and
multimedia development. In fact that tablet computer could replace most of the supplies that an
average junior high or high school kid needs to get their education.
And in this new world of animation the possibilities don’t only extend themselves to the
artist. With new media come new abilities, such as animation and interaction. An author isn’t
limited to just one example of an art work when he wants to talk about an example. You can
embed slideshows of different pictures into articles now and a viewer can be exposed to new
angles, renditions and age appropriate variations that would never be approachable in the old
fixed media.
Just because e media is getting cheaper and more prevalent, doesn’t mean that anyone
wants to say goodbye to traditional illustration. I bought a picture book just yesterday for my
child and it is only one of many on his shelf –– I’m proud to say that my one year old boy loves
picture books. And of course, I had to bring up picture books if I want to feel like I even
broached the topic of illustration. That’s what picture books are; illustrations that have some
words tagging along as dialog.
I loved the way Allyn Johnston and Marla Frazee put it in their article “Why We’re Still
in Love with Picture Books (Even Though They’re Supposed to be dead)” They said it like this,
“It’s theater! The words in a picture book are written to be performed. They are meant to be read
aloud! . . . . The goal is for everything to come together in such a way that the reader of the book
becomes a star performer and their audience adores them. The read-aloud experience should be
so extraordinary that practically as soon as the book is closed, everyone just wants to open it up
and do it again.”(5)
That is the power of illustration. When we are getting our children into books and trying
to instill that love of reading, illustrations are the invaluable way of wordlessly conveying
context that almost always gets taken for granted. Doing all the work and at the same time
willing to step aside and let you be the star. And yes you might be able to put the same pictures
and stories into a digital format, but one thing that you can’t get from a digital format is the
experience of turning the page; or more importantly the experience of your child turning the
page.
The reason that I chose to write this paper on illustration is simple, it stems from my love
of storytelling, art, and the fact that one won’t concede to the other. I reinvented the old cliché, if
you can’t beat’em join’em, by reworking it into, if your one love can’t beat out your other love,
join’em. Illustration has become a story in itself for me, and at the same time it has become an
outlet for me to express myself.
1
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary, . "definition of illustration." Web. 2
May 2012.
2
Warden, Tom. "'The oldest work of art ever': 42,000-year-old paintings of seals
found in Spanish cave." Mail online. N.p., 2012. Web. 2 May 2012.
<http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2097869/The-oldest-work-art-42-000-year-oldpaintings-seals-Spanish-cave.html>.
3
Jack, M.. Chauvet: The world. N.p., 2009. Web. 2 May 2012. <http://heritage-
key.com/world/chauvet-worlds-oldest-cave-paintings>.
4
Zac Schmidt. Web. 4 May 2012. <http://www.behance.net>.
5
Johnston, AllynFrazee, Marla. "Why We're Still In Love With Picture Books
(Even Though They're Supposed To Be Dead)." Horn Book Magazine 87.3 (2011):
10. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 4 May 2012.