Editorial Illustration: Don't Draw Something! Draw an Idea!

1. Intro: Alors I really feel pleasured. Hello, my name is Jessie Kanelos Weiner. I am an illustrator, author, and artist based in Paris for over ten years. When I was just getting started and kind of had the ambitions of becoming a professional illustrator. I could draw a tomato like nobody's business. There was a certain point in my work where it was like, "Okay, so what?" So at this point I really had to push myself to think a little bit more editorially about my work and what makes an illustration itself so, good question. What is an editorial illustration? It's an image that visualizes an article or serves some kind of a greater purpose. For example, you have to understand it right away. We have to get some kind of context about what is happening in the article itself. This course is gonna be broken down into three different assignments. The first one is a random idea generator. The second is almost like a fake illustration assignment. Just imagine that the New Yorker calls you to illustrate some kind of article about any kind of subject. And the third is a dream assignment. So this is a good way to get your ideas generating and thinking about a client, a brief, different visuals to include, et cetera, et cetera. This class really is for you if you feel like your work isn't exactly where you want it to be yet, where you feel like you're not really able to draw anything aside of what is in front of you, which is totally normal. No, no worries about that. We've all been there. And it's also for you if you have the ambitions of becoming a professional illustrator and you really need to beef up your portfolio. So our directors usually want to see your own personal work. So this is a great way to put that together and move forward with confidence and feel like you have a little bit more meet as far as how to proceed. I'll also share some essentials to think about when you're creating an illustration. Things that I think about when I get a new commission from someone like Vogue or The New York Times. And also lots of other insider tips site probably don't hear anywhere else. I'm really thrilled that you're joining me on this new journey and this new step in your work. And let's not lose any more time. Let's get started. 2. Tools: Here's everything you'll need to complete this project. Just to preface that this course really is about developing ideas. So with that said, you're going to need a sketchbook or some loose printer paper or recycled paper, which I like to use just because I feel a little bit more free when I'm using that. And also a pencil, a pen, whatever it is that you'd like to sketch with. So if you have a Lightboard or if you went to work with something like Photoshop or Illustrator, you're more than welcome to as well. Then I will be executing one of these illustrations in watercolor, which is the medium that I use and I prefer, but feel free to use whatever you like. So take out your supplies and we'll begin. 3. Tips: In this first micro lesson, I'm just going to walk you through some things that I always think about before I get started on an illustration. These are all things to think about before you start, so you don't lose time. And you feel a little bit more confident moving forward. The first one is what nim does this illustration fulfill? So we're all saturated by photos, but oftentimes illustration can be a superpower because you can take things one step further than then. Photography can in itself. For example, if you are commissioned to illustrate an article about fireman who saved dogs and fires in California. This is something that can't be photograph, but it's up to you to find a creative solution. So think of you as having the upper hand in this situation. Another thing that the art director will come to you is what the dimensions and the resolution of the illustration. So these are all things to keep in mind ahead of time. If you are working to create a banjo at the top of a page or a banner, for example, you're not going to work in a square format because you're gonna have to crap almost all of the image itself. Our director might come to you with a moodboard of images for inspiration. Or maybe there's some kind of treatment of color or technique in a previous illustrators work. So it's always best to researching and very specific article about a political issue. It's always good to get all of your research images together so that you can really concentrate on the creative prompt at hand. We want to think about it. There's a color schema at hand and maybe that there's a specific way that you can use color. Just the first thing that comes at the top of my head is you've seen Schindler's List and there's a girl in the red jacket and think how impactful the use of writers in that particular situation. So if you are doing a black and white illustration, maybe you can use red or another color to really create a pop which kind of retell a story? Is this illustration for the web or print, or is it for a gallery? This is something really important to keep in mind. I published a coloring book a couple years ago, and whenever I posted the black and white covering pages on social media, it was completely lost because there's too much detail in it was too fine. Once I added color already, could understand that it was a coloring book and there are some visual interests to the coloring book itself. If you're working in a gallery setting, you might want to think about doing very fine line work. But for editorial illustration as to be super graphic and right away all the elements have to speak for themselves. So let's move on to the first lesson. 4. Exercise 1: Hot Spots: In this first exercise, I like to call it the random idea generator. So here I'm really going to help you loosen up, really merged two ideas to create an illustration that's evocative of a wordplay. When I moved to Paris over ten years ago, I was a sponge for everything around me. I didn't speak French. I didn't know too much about the culture. And this is really the moment where I was outside of myself and I was able to really digest all of the new realities that meet up my life. Oh, once I learned a little bit of French, I was able to use this as a catalyst to inspire my work. So for example, the name of a dog's nose is a truth or a truffle, which I thought was funny until already the merging of these two images and this wordplay created one of my first illustration. In this first exercise, I'm going to give you a list of ATMs or wordplay and you're gonna use these to inspire some spot illustrations. So what does this spot illustration? This is a good intro to editorial illustration because these are the teeny tiny illustrations that aren't the header image, the big header image, but they reinforce the idea of the article within the article itself. So if you read The New Yorker, these are the little black and white illustrations that circulate throughout the whole magazine. I'm going to give you a list of some things to consider. And you're going to use these as a rough inspiration for creating some sketches inspired by what you see. And you're going to draw the first thing that comes to the top of your head. So let's get started. This is a list of all the wordplay inspirations and feel free to download it down below in the resources section, the first one obviously is word play, okay, so already we're going to almost make a mindmap. Word and play, play. I think of toys. I think of kids and word, I think of crossword puzzles. I'd say that words can be a really good first step into fighting a creative solution to something. Don't hesitate to create a list of the two categories and then we'll try to find some solutions based on those after. I'm just going to start going at it here. What about blocks? What if we create some blocks? And there's a hand and a small child. So remember if this is a spot illustration included in an article, and if the article is about wordplay, then have some cue of what it is. But if you want it to be strictly understandable and that's going to be a whole other exercise and finding the best solution. So this can be a child wordplay, but already adding a child and makes it more about the energy between the child and the play. There's another option. Could be something like a mouth that's speaking. Don't hesitate if there are no bad ideas. It's just, I think it's worse to be a completely stuck in your head and not permit yourself to make stupid ideas come to life. So sometimes the best ideas come from the worst ideas, wordplay, and then maybe there's some kind of, maybe it's a mouth like this. Gonna be a good graphic. Illustration word. Best if the mouth is slightly open. There we go. Okay. What do you think are the best options? This is no, because it doesn't work with the concept. This is nice. Maybe it's just the hand of the kid because otherwise it gets a little bit to out-of-focus on the the ADM at hand. Maybe there's just a blurred child's silhouette in the background or don't hesitate if you don't land it on the first try because a lot of times it just takes revisions after revisions. That doesn't look like a child, but you get the idea. Wordplay. I like this one because it's graphic and it's playful, feel sensual. This one, the mouth is an open so there's less of them. The spirit and language. This is my, the winter Cherry Bomb. So the first thing that comes to mind, which is totally fine, don't feel like you have to reinvent the wheel. Is it's probably why they, where it got its name is a little cherry with the the stem that is ignited. That's simple, easy to understand. Can we take it further? What if there are several cherries? The branch, okay, that's one way to go about it. Maybe there's some other way to represent fire or that conflict of the ignition of the Cherry Bomb. And because some kind of maybe it's a whole cherry tree, kinda looks like chicken scratches. It's okay because I said it myself, but maybe there's some other way to maybe the tree is the stem of the bomb or something like this. And then there's that tension at the end of the day. And the first option is the best and simplest. It's been done before, but for me it works the best. So we're not going to break our, we're not going to lose our cool over that one. The next one is the hot dog. Oftentimes what I like to do. Is make two lists of things related to the workplace. I have hot dog. Okay, so when I think of a hot dog, I think of a wiener dog. I'm just going to stay with the wiener dog now. It could be any old dog, but I think that for the sake of it being recognizable, I'm just going to work with the wiener dog. So when you think of things that are hot, I think of a fan. I think of the summer time, which is at mean big hat. I think of an egg cooking pavement. I think my hot dog is just the hot dog itself. Maybe there's some kind of been or I didn't really think of ketchup and relish, know that I have an idea of my wordplay. I'm just going to start sketching. So hot dog, wiener dog in a button isn't entirely a new, innovative idea, but I tried to find a different angle with the dog laying on its back panting, which once again reinforces that he is indeed a hot dog. I'm just going to keep sketching through these really quickly. Had another idea too, of a dog with his head in a fire hydrant, the water going off. That could be another funny idea to propose. How about a thermometer? And maybe there's a wiener dog laying out on a thermometer. The nose is focal point. So even when you're sketching, if you think okay, maybe there's something that I can use from the object. Nothing. Maybe there's something I can use in all of these things to ground the illustration here, I imagined a big hat in the summertime, so maybe it's a giant fried egg hatch marks a little out there, but I kinda like it a table fan. But the dog's nose is the center of the fan. Be a clever idea as well. Okay, so as you see, I'm still playing, but these are just some ideas off the top of my head that I really like. And I'm just going to keep sketching until I'm happy with my options. Here's an ice cube tray that's also the body of a dog. That's another good option as well. So if you're hesitating, you can shrink these down by half and see which one's read the best for you choose which one that you end up flushing out in the medium of your choice. Here are my options. I like the first hotdog option and the last one with the dog fan knows something to consider when you're adding color is to see if there are any colors that are associated with the subject matter at hand. So yellow and red, remind me of ketchup and mustard. So here you can see already that adds a whole other form of impact to my spot illustrations. Here are a few spot illustration collection that I've done in the past on the theme of global warming and the heat of the summer. Now you should have at least three to five ideas fleshed out. And from here I encourage you to put these into the medium of your choice in whether it's watercolor, pastel, you name it, it's up to your collage, etc. So hopefully this is just a good little image bank of spot illustrations. And hopefully you got your ideas brewing a little bit. 5. Exercise: 2 Faux Commission: This next exercise, It's what I call a fake or a photo illustration commission. So imagine that you get an email from an art director, which has happened to me before. My, one of my first big breaks was I got an email from Vogue and they said they wanted a hot dog covered in Oreo cookies. I said yes, I made it in life. Anyway, this is just a fake assignment to illustrate an idea, meaning it's not just a random piece of art, but it's here to illustrate impactful image that evokes whatever is in an article. So let's get started with this exercise. I'm going to create almost like a fake commission. Imagine that I'm sure Art Director. At last, I'm gonna give you everything you need to put together an illustration. First of all, you need a client, okay, So this is gonna be any news magazine that you like or that you kind of have an idea of who it's for us. Another thing that you can do is look at the opinion page of site like the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal. Oftentimes just illustrated because it's not necessarily easy to photograph a concept that's a little bit more intellectual. If you're looking for inspiration, look at this and also think about looking at it on a page. Do I understand the action right away? Is it graphic? How has color used to really make it pop as well? I have a tendency to use the ground, but on the web it doesn't really read well as well. So if you always do a white background, now's the time to really think about using color in a way that makes it pot on the page itself. I'm just going to read through this brief really quick. It says, dear insert your name. I'm writing from insert news magazine here. My colleague shared your website with me. I love your work. We would love to commission you to illustrate if future opinion piece messy, some sketches, at least two different themes by the end of the week, which is often the case. And if you work for the press, it's usually really tight deadlines. So this is for everyone's, for some people, people love working this way and for others it's not at all a possibility, especially if you're doing oil painting and illustration. So more on that later. Would you be able to deliver the final art by next week? This is a pretty generous deadline as well. Here are the dimensions and what we had in mine, the art direction is this is the content we have and this is what we want as far as the illustration. And the cool thing about being an illustrator is you're the one who finds a solution. So oftentimes they'll come to you because there isn't a photo that can illustrate this article, so it's up to you to find a creative solution. The article title is the end of democracy. This isn't entirely happy, but it's topical and the art direction is fine, too simple of classical Greek democracy. See images attached if it's a good art director or real art director, they'll include some images that they like in brief. There are providing the images of classical Greek democracy and they want an action to make it shake or some kind of tension point, okay? The color palette is red, white, and blue. And of course, I'm American, so I haven't own perspective of democracy, but you can adapt this to your own country as well. Its dimensions is square. It's going to be pretty small on a page, so it needs to be graphic enough to understand even if it's teeny-tiny. The images on hand here are of classical Greek democracy. So I have to see some columns. I see a temple, a Greek temple, and also a vase that has some imagery on it. I'm going to just start thinking this through. I think if anything comes to mind, just to reemphasize that when you're doing editorial illustration, you don't need to reinvent the wheel. If you have a good art director, they'll send you exactly what it is you need to draw. And then it's up to you to find a tension point into merge these things together. So as you can see here, I'm just sketching out some ideas that come to the top of my head. I have the Grecian vibe that I'm adding a crack into which represents the pending doom of democracy. But I don't think that this is as obvious as I would like it to be. So it's onto the next idea. I thought, wouldn't it be funny to have a Greek column that's also a cake that's crumbling into the abyss. That can be an interesting metaphor. Another idea is to play along with the imagery of the Republican and Democratic parties in the United States. I'm creating a Grecian column using the elephant and the donkey symbols. But this may not be as graphic as I needed to be in this case. When I think about voting, I think of hands that are raised and everyone having their own say. What if I make a hand on top of a Grecian column to represent the voting rights. People in a democracy. This could be a good idea. Maybe the hand is broken or it's cracked in some way. And of course it's not just the vote of one but of everyone. So I really liked this idea. I think it stands out and it's not as it's more or less original and haven't seen it yet. So I'm going to develop this idea one step further. And if you need to add some words that really inspire you, I'm thinking of voted, Voting, the common good raised hands. Thinking of a symbol of political party, raise hand in general has a little bit more conviction to it. So I'm just going to try to flesh this out a little bit better. Imagine that this is increase in marble or something like that. And then I can add some crack lines as well. So it's creates a little bit of tension for democracy. Looks like this. And of course, democracy isn't just the vote of one person, but if several. So I'm going to add many hands already. You can see that this is much more participant 2's. Sorry, French is my second language, but English escapes these sometimes I think that this might be a good option for now. I'm just going to continue sketching until I'm really happy with whatever options that I have. Or perhaps it's something like Grecian column Jenga. Here you've got our two options. If I were to send these to an art director, I would send these two and then wait for feedback. So maybe that they would say that this is the stronger option because we understand that a little bit better. Or maybe they would say, How about this option, but maybe we should see the heads of the Grecian statues. We understand a little bit better. But in any case, I'm going to send these along to the imaginary art director. Another concept to consider it as being your own art director, especially in this exercise, since I'm only your imaginary art director favorite. Before adding color was the column Jenga. Here it looks a little bit lost. If you're considering which option to flesh out into color or picking out one of your strongest two options. Feel free to add a little bit of color and shrink it down on a page and see which one is the easiest to understand and then that way you can determine, Okay, this is what I'm gonna do. So even if you're not working with an art director, be your own art director and make those decisions because ultimately you are editing and directing your own work in general and deciding on what to show. I don't want choices to make along the way. I encourage you to flesh this out in the medium of your choice and really think about all the things I talked about in the insider tips. As far as thinking about composition, how it'll look on his screen, and also thinking about your color choices, choices as well. So maybe you need to add a little bit more color. I think about where the I initially draws you in and apply all of these things to your final illustration. 6. Exercise 3 Dream Commission: In this final lesson, this is what I call a dream assignment. So if you want to start creating work that intrigues art directors and commissioned work, you can ideally get paid. I mean, isn't that what we all want at the end of the day, you really need to have kind of the, the catalyst to visually merge somebody's world, somebody's idea with your own style. I got this idea from girls door a the blog or an illustrator. I saw her speak in Paris a long time ago and someone asks a question of how to get started as a professional illustrator. And what she encouraged everyone to do is to give yourself a fake assignment just like this one. This assignment really is to merge a dream client, say Chanel commissioned a watch advertisement inspired by, I don't know, the steam punk movement. Who knows? This really is to get the ideas generating as far as your own ideas, but also working with something that is essential when you're doing commissioned work is a client brief. So you need to look at the brand, look at the identity, the colors, previous advertisements, and really merging all of these things to create an image that serves a purpose, which is to sell a watch. So let's get started. In this final exercise. This is everything that you need to know and hopefully it's enough structure to get you started. So this is the dream gig. This is the thing you've been waiting for. And you can put all of your interests to play here. So if you're looking for a theme or an idea, you're looking for a client. So this could be a magazine, it could be in brand anyone you like. Then you're also going to give yourself a structure by including existing elements. With that said, I'm going to first pick my client because that to me is the easiest piece to begin on. So like all illustrators, my number one dream gig is to do a New Yorker cover. New Yorker is my client. This is the mind-map to get you started. And then we're going to go a little bit deeper here and sketch things out a little bit further. The New Yorker cover, I'm just going to put together all the details. So be sure if you are doing a Time magazine cover or something like that, be sure to add all the unnecessary info here. So it's a vertical format. The think about the audience. The audience is highbrow, urban in the know as far as a lot of issues are concerned vary. The note the Xite guys and culture. Okay, and then I also found the dimensions of the cover itself, 273 millimeters by 200 millimeters. So already I'm set to go. I know exactly the context and I have an idea of who this is for. Then I'm gonna think about the theme or the idea. Something that comes to mind that I know in particular, I haven't seen in New York recover, delving into this yet is pandemic parenting. Lot of parents are really in the trenches these past couple of years. I had an idea that I want to flush out already. I'm gonna put a few keywords here that are of interest to me. So too lost years, I don't know if they're lost. I thought of a pandemic as my extended maternity leave. These are other things to kind of continue the idea to calendar years and who knows how long, how much longer this will go on. And then also thinking about the evolution of my child from the beginning when he was still on his back and couldn't roll over until now and he's completely fully formed two-year-old, I won't go as far to say he's grown up, but you get the idea. I thought about Darwin's evolution, maybe some way to include this. Just flipping back to the existing elements instead of reinventing the wheel, you can merge your idea as something that exists already. Thinking about the calendar year, it's different calendar options. So I have a wall calendar. Maybe there's some way to put two years into that. That might be complicated. What if it's a bunch of tariff calendar days, but since it's two years, it might be too much. And then I thought about what about one of these calendars? It's on the back of a calendar that has two years already. So I think that this could be a good structure. Thinking of that I thought, wouldn't it be cool if this were a studio apartment, since it's for the New Yorker, since it's for someone a little bit more urbane. What if the two calendar years, two thousand and twenty and two thousand and twenty one or like a duplex. And here we have the newborn phase. We have the baby on his back with the mobile. We have baby's first steps going up and down the stairs. I added some stairs is to add a little bit of a connection between the top and the bottom. Then all of the, the evolution steps from teeny-tiny baby to Tiny Terror. This is my idea. I really like it and I think that this could be a really good evocative New Yorker cover idea. So with that said, think about your dream gig you're dying to work with. Okay, so pick a client that you know, well, think about the audience. Think about a theme or an idea. If there's something that relates to you in your own life, I feel like that's usually the best material is something that you know. Then look for existing elements, something so you don't have to reinvent the wheel. And really find something that works in particular for you. Okay? Now I'm going to sketch out my image little by little and some things that I want to think about connecting the top and the bottom and the duplex. And then also any kind of ways I can add a minimal amount of information and keeping it as efficient as possible. Use my first revision of the sketch. I like the Z composition. I think it'll be really important to continue the movement from the top to the bottom. And then maybe even connecting all of the figures in the drawing. Say like this, I'm just going to sketch this out for you real quick. I'd like to maybe make all of the figures connected in some way just to create a little bit of movement, almost like it's stop-motion, something like this. See what I mean. So as you can see, I'm adding some color on my sketch just to fill up this space. Since the, the composition itself is quite minimal, I'm going to really try to maximize the movement. So of course we want to understand that there are two figures. But I also want to understand that there is some kind of consecutive time-lapse element to the final illustration. I'm going to think about my color treatment and kind of like the green because it's living in, it speaks of life and vitality. And I'm going to think about if I want to do this in watercolor or my next steps. I had another idea too for a New Yorker cover. Of course, this is very timely, but I've been thinking about Ukraine and humanitarian how, and what a good way would be to represent that. So I saw a short film by Karen Ellis. I can't remember the name. These two stuck. I think it's totally butchering that, but I think it's a fake language anyway. But it was about flower growing and springtime and all the insects that were attracted to it and most cycle of life. So I thought, wouldn't it be interesting to use this idea to create a sunflower, which is an important flour in Ukraine and create some kind of idea of humanitarian help or rebuilding around that. Of course, this is a little premature since the war is still going on. But anyway, this is the base idea. I just started sketching this out. The left, as you can see, I did a little bit of research just looking at ukrainian folk art. And I like this composition a lot. So as you can see these, sometimes you just need to find some images that inspire you and that can really be a catalyst to create a final work. I'm just getting through this. I'm gonna try to put together a composition of some sunflowers and then build almost like scaffolding to connect all the flowers and to represent the humanitarian work. I'm just building up my sunflower now. I'm going to add little by little. I'm going to add a ladder to create a little bit of movement and action from the bottom to the top of the page. So as you can see, this composition really is grounded in the flower itself. And then from there I can start building it out. I'm going to add pulley system to pull boxes up and building of a house and some other essentials. And this is looking quite nice, okay, so as you can see, the contact is coming together with the base image. I don't need to reinvent the wheel. I looked at flower, the sunflower, which is important in Ukraine, Research image and then found some kind of action to play along with the element. The existing elements. Don't feel like you have to reinvent the wheel. It really isn't just about empowering yourself with the research and then creating an idea that merges the concept with the existing imagery. Here are my two final sketches in the case I were working within New Yorker, I would send these and tell them a little bit about them. The left is about pandemic parenting their ideas about the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. And then I'd wait for their response if they responded, but then they would give me a little bit of feedback. In the case of this were selected, cover director would give me feedback as far as color and all of these other things. So I hope this exercise was helpful just about thinking about putting together editorial compositions and also using things like existing images to really help you give them identifiable framework. So don't feel like you have to reinvent the wheel. Once again. These tools will hopefully serve you well in the future. I'm gonna let you now take it from here and put together some concepts of your own. Feel free to upload them down below and I'll give you feedback. 7. Color Bonus: In this final little bonus lesson, I'm just going to talk you through a little bit about color and different ways of using color to really reinforce the strong concepts that you've developed in all of these exercises. So before we begin, let me just show you this image. This is the exact same cup of coffee but with six different backgrounds. So already just looking at this, what does your eye look at? First, it's obviously the red. The eye is automatically dropped more drawn to read if you think about a stop sign, for example, or a fire truck. This is something that you need to see right away and it's not by chance that these colors are picked. And then looking at the other ones too, the yellow is a little bit lost. Which cup of coffee? It looks most like a cup of coffee to you. I'd say the blue and the brown. The blue is a complimentary color of the brown so it helps it pop. And then brown are already suggests that it's coffee. This is just a very simple way of understanding color and the different associations. I'm sure there are many great courses on how to understand this and to adapt it to your own practice. But if you are new to creating visuals, it's always good to take a look at the color wheel, which is, I know it's weird, rudimentary, but it actually does work. So dry color wheel understand your colors. Something to understand and editorial illustration is complimentary colors. So these are often things that are found in sports uniforms, Christmas colors, etc. Here for example, this is an orange on a blue background. And it's perfectly fine but it really pops. Or this might be the kind of approach has a little bit aggressive for what you want to do. Here, I added a less saturated, meaning I added more white to the blue background here. And already we get a little bit more subtlety. As far as the final approach, you can use complimentary colors, but not in the first degree approach. So here for example, I have my watercolor kit. Obviously. It doesn't apply if you don't use watercolor. But instead of using the color directly from the palette, this could be a Photoshop palette. It can be markers. Really mix your colors and understand them because you'll get much more variety in your work the more you know your colors and the more you can adapt them to get what you want. And another thing to think about when you are developing spot illustrations or if you're looking for some kind of a palate is to look at whatever it is that you're drawing. If you remember in the first exercise, I drew a bunch of spot illustrations around the idea of a hot dog. When I was putting together my final illustrations, the first color is at peer mentor. Mine were red and yellow to represent ketchup and mustard. And so already you can see here that it adds a whole other kind of playful pop to the final illustrations because these are colors that are associated with the subject matter at hand. So don't feel. In your research, feel free to ask yourself, are there any colors that come to mind in particular for this subject and use those accordingly. Also, you can just use two or three colors. Don't feel like you need to use the whole pallet. Because oftentimes in graphic work, That's what speaks to most and can also help you develop your own personal style, this boundaries, understanding dark and light and everything in-between. So don't feel like we need to use all the colors. You can always just pick a couple and use those accordingly. You've spent so much time putting together this fabulous concept and composition. But there are few things to consider before you start applying color. So these are all things to think about it in the sketch phase, you can even paint directly on your sketch itself to, to kind of get a basic idea. Looping back to my dream assignment, which I'm still putting into fruition. So call me The New Yorker. Contact was the pandemic parenting cover illustration. I really hesitate it and know how to approach this course. There's a very human touch, motherhood throughout these two difficult ears. And so in particular, I thought watercolor would've worked well, but I was also really curious to see how it would look just in black and white and maybe a little bit less of a hand-drawn done treatment. So as you can see here, I just put this together really quickly using a calendar I found on Google image and just a really quick black silhouettes on top of that. And so I still think it works. We understand the action, but I still feel like it's missing kind of a human touch and then it still missing that human touch in watercolor really does add some nice detail as well that I think that a new onset, I think that this, this version is missing. Of course, the options are endless unfortunately. But hopefully at least you can kind of give yourself a little perspective and things developed a strong concept. How can I best use color to really make it as impactful as possible? And also remember the size of the image if it's printed on a page or if it's on the web. So now hopefully you feel empowered to really flesh out these illustrations in color in the best possible way. So feel free to upload anything you'd like below and I'll take a look and give you some commentary and I'm really looking forward to seeing you can put together. 8. Conclusion: When you're working as a professional illustrator, you have to think about, okay, I am in service of this brand and I'm the person who's communicating an idea. If you want to create work that inspires others to commission, you, you need to be able to adapt your own personal style to their needs. So that means thinking about the client, their identity, if they have certain colors in mind, etc. So hopefully these are all things to keep in mind when you're creating your own work that could potentially draw on clients and start getting commissions. And hopefully you'll look at the world a little bit differently. Another exercise you can give yourself is to Look at the newspaper and illustrate it. Always keeping your mind active is a really great way to continue creating ideas and really flexing that creative muscle that serve your work. Thank you so much for joining me. Feel free to upload your work down below. I'll be sure to give you feedback and share. Thank you so much. I'm really encouraged that you've done such a great job on this assignment. And I look forward to walking you through another one soon. Take care and much love from Paris. Bye.