Fall Fancy Roughs

For tomorrows Thursday Night Illustration class at the Art Institute we were given a magazine page template with a poem in place. Our assignment was to rough out or illustration  for the page.

The poem is about fall, and mentions old robin's nests, and seed pods, so the setting is outside.

We were told that the art had to include a 8 year old girl.

That's all of the direction we were given. The rest is up to us.

Oh, we were also told that the art had to be made using collage.

Not a technique that I have used much, but I'm open to it.

The following are the roughs I worked up.

I wanted to create a piece that wasn't as "cartoony" as I normally do.

So I picked a girl and another character for he to interact with. 

Girls like cats, so he became the second character.

This was my first idea.

I think it's the type of idea that would pop into most illustrators heads right away.

I think it could be quite and peaceful, and sweet.

This is the second idea.

It's the same basic idea a little closer to the characters , but I think changing the park bench to a swing makes it a bit more interesting.

This is the third idea.
This one is much tighter on the character. The girl is now interacting with one of the robins from the poem instead of the cat.

This is the fourth and final idea.

The cat is back and they are investigating the old robin's nest while the robin watches from his perch.
I'll be taking these roughs "as is" to class tomorrow to get feed back.

Since the final art will be done using collage I am favoring  the 3rd and 4th images because of their larger shapes and less background detail.

I think I'm going to be using a multiple layer technique.

My plan right now is to do tight line art of the entire image, and then print it out onto different papers.

I'll then glue the chosen papers onto a 1/8 inch or 1/4 inch board and then cut away the areas of each board that aren't needed. I'll have 3 or 4 layers that stack on top of each other to create the image.

Tomorrow in class we are going to play with paint and create the papers for the collaging.

Go ahead and play Art Director and tell me what you like/don't like about each image, and tell me which one I can  "go to final with changes."