IF-FRIDAY: JAWS of TENSION!

      Yeah it's Friday! Illustration Friday! This week's topic is TENSION.  I changed concepts on this week's challenge mid-stride; midweek.
     I had originally planned to do something with an animal tight rope walking.   I had it planned down to the animal, the costume style ad a foggy sense of the composition... but then something happened.

     Last Summer I picked up my vintage paperback copy of JAWS by Peter Benchley and decided to read it.  Like many books, I pick them up read them for a while then pick up some other book and read that for a while, etc.  Last month, I picked up JAWS again and began to finish reading it.  I finished the book earlier this week.  It was a very good book and I enjoyed it very much.  I particularly like the nod to Moby Dick at the very end.

 
     So this led me to thinking about watching the movie again, which I did, which led me to look at old movie posters for the film as well as some more recent fan art for the film, mostly NEW Versions of the films promotional poster.

 [poster artists left to right: 

Matt Verges, Daniel Norris and Alaine Bossuyt]

     This inspired me to decide that this week's Illustration for IF Fridays would be my homage to my most favorite film, JAWS.  I wanted a very broad scope and fairly symmetrical composition.  I thought it would be interesting to let the psychology of pop culture play the highest influence on creating the "tension" in this illustration.
Structurally, every thing in the composition is very calm and linear, few to none diagonal lines to create action, etc.  I wanted the tension to come from within the mind of the viewer, only.  It's interesting how a slight suggestion from content alone can create such inner chaos from such a quiet and serene composition. I hope you all enjoy.  Go read the book, if you haven't previously... It's worth the read.

until then,
Keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing and most important of all, keep making art. 
Cheers,
LEWIS