11.16.2011

Speak friend, and the doors shall open

This piece was an over-sized full pager for Leap Magazine. The subject matter was pretty tricky, as it spoke about the harshness of cancer, and how talking about it - sharing your story - is the best was to deal with the pain. I worked on ideas for a solid day, and it was certainly tricky, because i didnt just want some conceptual one liner, but rather i wanted to connect with the article on an emotional level. I've been working on making my illustration more personal (in general) lately - for this piece in particular, across the road from the farm where i grew up there was a long field, backed up against another field - in the wintertime it becomes this expanse of bleak snow, with only a few trees breaking up the landscape. Remembering how that specific area made me feel set the tone for the piece and seemed like the proper setting for cancer. I thought about how spring always eventually came, and with it life and energy. Having the mans lines of speech BE spring seemed like a perfect way to show the power speech has. Some less than perfect roughs below, there were lots more:

4 comments:

leslie said...

very powerful Pete!

Evan said...

This kills Pete! Love it.

Anonymous said...

that's really nice Pete...the flowers rubbed off a little bit.
Bruno would like that you incorporated his field.
See you...

pete ryan said...

Thanks everyone - yes, all credit to Bruno!!