STRETCHING into Spring on Illustration Friday
Hello, friends. Welcome back and Happy Spring! I know the Equinox was a few weeks back but I haven't written a new post since before. I also know it is not a Friday today but that is ok. We are celebrating a former Illustration Friday idea/concept. In any case, I don't know about everyone else, but I am certainly appreciative of this nice little warm snap we are having in the city. I am certainly looking forward to unpacking all my shorts and getting outside and doing more of those outside-y-type things this Spring and definitely this upcoming Summer. And I am sure I will. I hope you all are getting ready for that too.
So, as I mentioned, this week we are celebrating an illustration idea/concept that I had for Illustration Friday almost 10 years ago. If you are new to the Blog, I have mentioned in previous posts how part of my Resolutions for Art this year was to go back into my morgue of old sketchbooks and dig out unfinished projects that had promise, but for one reason or another, did not get completed. I have already begun to do this with several of the most recent illustrations I completed and have posted them here and on my other social media platforms. There still are a small handful of sketches and thumbnails that I will continue to develop, but I have moved into also pulling out old ideas and concepts from my Idea Journal. Specifically the Illustration Friday ideas that I had for the previous week's topics but again, for one reason or another, had not been completed.
So we are celebrating Illustration Friday topics of Fridays gone by. As we all know by now, Illustration Friday is no longer around, which is ok. Nothing is ever intended to last forever. Not one single thing. And that is not a STRETCH to say. lol. This brings me to this week's topic, STRETCH. I exercise pretty regularly. However, stretching, I admit, is not something I personally do enough of. I have a friend of mine that regularly calls me out on it, and I can't really say anything about it, because I know they are right. lol, I certainly need to do more on a daily basis.
Why is stretching so important?
"Stretching keeps the muscles flexible, strong, and healthy, and we need that flexibility to maintain a range of motion in the joints. Without it, the muscles shorten and become tight. Then, when you call on the muscles for activity, they are weak and unable to extend all the way."
-Harvard Health
What are some easy, go-to, handy dandy stretches that I can do even when I am at home? I'm so pleased you asked because I have a handy dandy video just for you:
Let's discuss the illustration before we go.
This is a direct quote from my Idea Journal:
"11.30.13. IF Friday Stretch.
Make a triptych of a frog in yoga poses zen."
I knew exactly what I was looking for, more or less, and how I wanted this series of illustrations to be arranged... More or less. Even ten years later, reading my little and minimal note immediately conjured the original vision I had then as if I had the idea fresh today. There were some changes made to the vision I originally had because when you are actually sketching and stretching things out, you run into complications or issues that you need to solve. Things your brain didn't see in its thumbnail sketch in the brain of how it was going to turn out... and that is ok. That is part of the nature of the beast.
Frogs were always going to be part of it. Why? I really couldn't say. My guess, retrospectively, is that I was (and still am) really into drawing/illustrating animals. Perhaps I thought that I needed to add some frogs into the repituo. Why yoga? The topic is "Stretch," right? Well, I may get some comments regarding this opinion, but yoga always seemed like it was just advanced stretching. lol. While I am sure that stretching in advanced ways is certainly part of it, I am aware that it is much more than that. Also, I think the aesthetics of yoga poses would lend something more than your basic stretching poses might.
So what changed exactly from my original thoughts about this illustration? Well, the poses are a bit different than I had originally imagined. I was originally thinking about having all 3 poses be floor stretching poses. The center leg split was ALWAYS going to be the anchor and still is. It was the first frog I drew of the three. However, as I was doing my reference research (because I'm a nerd like that), I realized that the floor poses were going to either have the frog facing in a manner that I didn't want, or that they would be TOO HORIZONTAL, similar to the leg split and I definitely wanted only ONE really dramatic horizontal stretching pose in the series, so I had to can that part of the original idea and I began to research some more vertical standing poses. I compromised with a full standing, a full floor, and then a 3rd that was sort of in-between horizontal and vertical.
The second major change or compromise that I made from my original vision was the workout outfit that the frogs are wearing. (I say frogs but it is obviously the same frog in 3 different poses, which is what I originally wanted.) It is the original outfit and colors for it. I ended up using it for the Mountain Biking character in that recent illustration. So, obviously, I didn't want to draw another character so close to that one wearing the same outfit... I mean, what would have happened if they showed up at the same yoga studio? lol. I chose to go for something a little different. While clothes don't have a gender, I wanted something that could be either gender-fluid or gender-neutral. I was thinking that my frog here is non-binary. I was thinking this because some species of frogs are able to change their gender in a same-sex environment. I wanted to celebrate and reference that frogs don't need to have a gender, gender roles, or gendered clothing. So they are sporting their sweet crop-top tank top and yoga/lounge shorts.
Even with the changes/compromises from my original idea, I am overall very pleased with how this series turned out. I think this frog is very cute. I LOVE their SPRING-y Colors and fresh-faced go-get-em attitude. They are fun and light-hearted illustrations. They certainly express a sentiment and attitude that I want to personally adopt as I STRETCH from Spring into my Summer this year. I hope you all enjoy them and feel inspired to get outside and grab some of that Spring Sunshine.
until next time, friends...
Keep sketching, keep thinking, keep laughing, and most important of all, keep making art.
Cheers,
LEWIS
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