Part 1: Getting the Gist

Exercise details:

For this exercise I will need to take an article from a newspaper or magazine and then create an image based on it. The process will involve analysing the article, highlighting the keyword(s), and then exploring them in order to form ideas for the illustration.

Getting the gist:

At first, this exercise seemed rather daunting, I flicked through the morning newspaper and didn't feel particularly inspired by the mainly political stories and articles. I then skimmed through a random collection of old magazines I have piled up, and my imagination was captured by a small piece about hibernating queen bees in the June 2012 edition of Buzzword newsletter from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.  I immediately started visualising a drawing of a bee cozy and protected from the harsh winter around. I have a keen interest in the natural world and conservation, so the topic has both an intellectual and emotional pull factor for me.

The first step was ensuring that I had a proper understanding of the topic/piece, so that there would be no misconceptions in the final artwork.  Although the final artwork is a work of creativity and imagination, I think it extremely important that the illustration is routed in the facts and realities of the subject matter. Especially as though the target audience (if it were to be used as an illustration in a bee magazine) would be enthusiasts and would certainly notice anatomical gaffes and topical errors.  One would want to avoid things such as "that's not a queen bee, that's a worker...", "actually, that drawing is wrong, bees don't hibernate like that..."

After reading through for understanding I then took a highlighter and I highlighted all the words and short phrases that conveyed the meaning of the piece.  I thought this to be an extremely interesting and valuable activity.  A form of brainstorming that very much appeals to me; my imagination can very much be fired from words and word-associations.  Here is the piece and my highlighting:


I then took the highlighted words and key-phrases into mind-mapping software and let me mind wander over the words.  Any associations or imagery that came to mind were added to the mind-map. Again, like the previous stage I found this an extremely creative and rewarding experience. In letting my mind wander over words and imagery I was forming many fleeting visualisations of what either the whole composition could look like, or the individual parts.  Here is the final mind-map:

As can be seen from the diagram above, the original words and phrases are in quotes in the grey boxes, whilst the imagery which came to mind during the brain-storming are shown in light-blue.  I was a little surprised by how big the final diagram was at the end of the process, but it wasn't unwieldy and still served well as the inspiration and reflection for the next stage, moving on to initial ideas sketches.
- - - 
After letting my mind wander through the words and imagery of the mind-map, I had a vague notion of a drawing which I wanted to explore in sketch.  My main consideration was to see if the composition and visual feel of the piece would transfer from my minds-eye into something workable on paper.  These were the general thought-processes:
  • -Underground - Warren - Nest - Chamber - Hole - Rough-hewn:  A bee in a rough-hewn hole in the ground, shown in the bottom part of the drawing.
  • - Sleep - fluffy - cute:  The bee itself somehow curled into a safe and cozy position in its hole in the ground. 

Initial development ideas and sketches:

Here are the initial ideas and exploratory sketches, where I've attempted to play around with the idea, composition and the overall look of the drawing (plus a few thoughts and annotations), whilst keeping within the spirit of my mind-mapping thought processes:

(Click on images for full sized view)

Draft "final" version :


Media used: Graphite of various grades on white sketching paper

The key question for me after producing the illustration was, "have I been successful in 'getting the gist'?'   Does this image represent the original textual piece that I chose?   First of all I think it is important to evaluate the illustration against the summary of my mind-mapping process, which were:
  • -Underground - Warren - Nest - Chamber - Hole - Rough-hewn:  A bee in a rough-hewn hole in the ground, shown in the bottom part of the drawing.
  • - Sleep - fluffy - cute:  The bee itself somehow curled into a safe and cozy position in its hole in the ground. 
I think I've achieved the above.
Further, I'm quite happy with the general match and association back through the mind-mapping and to the highlighted key words.  I've re-read the original text and imagined my drawing as the illustration for the article.  The visual match of my drawing to the content of the text (the burrowing queen bee) is strongly in place.

However, one thing that was important to me was achieving a broadly-realistic looking (anatomically correct) hybernating bumblebee for this drawing.  I closely inspected queen bees whilst drawing and thought that I had achieved a good bee, however after reviewing the final draft, I realised there was a fundamental problem. The queen bee that I have wasn't fluffy enough and looked more like a honey queen bee, not bumblebee.   Like I stated earlier, one would not want serious and obvious gaffes to the specialist reader.  This drawing is not for the purpose of scientific illustration, and some creative interpretation is a good thing, but I just couldn't rest with the drawing.  I asked a family member who is quite knowledgeable about bees and they said it was a honeybee queen, not bumble.  Therefore I had to redraw and refine the drawing to solve the problem.  The revised final drawing is below:

Final illustration:



The bee is now more noticeable fluffy and characteristic of a bumblebee.  I'm glad I altered the drawing, I feel a lot more satisfied.   As one can see in the comparison below, the bee on the right is now most certainly what people would recognise as a bumblebee.

Overall, I'm not too concerned about any other "scientific" gaffs, e.g. would the physical process of bee burrowing show up inadequacies in my drawing?!  Overall, I've tried to get the gist of the text, imagine the scene, and represent it.  I'm not sure it you'd say my drawing could be "scientifically" accurate on bee burrowing, but then does it have to?  There is surely a line of tension on accuracy versus creative license?
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The initial exploratory sketches were an essential part of the process in helping me develop the image. I feel it was extremely important to try out different ideas and experiment as an idea for the drawing started to take form. I always envisaged a pencil drawing; I felt that an austere pencil drawing would be in keeping with the cold/hibernation theme.
The composition of the image was based on the rule of thirds, above ground being roughly one third, and the lower intersection of the thirds sitting on the bee's head and rear.
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Overall, I've very much enjoyed this exercise. What has particularly appealed is the problem solving nature of it and the range of activities that were in it.  From keyword highlighting of text, through to pencil sketching.   I like the mix of problem-solving and creativity in the technique of highlighting and then mind-mapping.

Sources used for this exercise:

Buzzword Newsletter, June 2016. Available online from:
http://bumblebeeconservation.org/images/uploads/Buzzword/Buzzword_20_final.pdf  [6th November 2016]

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