Story Sketches is one of my favorite projects. It offers a much-needed and, currently, unique service. I support this one by linking, not just to illustrations of my work, but most of the images in general. They are just fun to look at, and a lot of them depict other stories that I and my audience are reading anyhow.
One cool result of this is the depth effect. I'm learning what meeksp particularly excels at drawing. This makes it easier for me to select scenes from a story or poem to request. First I look for scenes that are pivotal to the action, but don't give away everything. That's often something near the climax. I think about what is photogenic -- what bit will tell a story well in images and attract the viewer's attention. Then I think about this particular artist's fortes.
Most recently, I chose a scene with very dramatic lighting for "Shine On (http://meeksp.livejournal.com/38326.html)." I picked this scene out of several possibilities, partly because I was impressed with how meeksp handled the play of light and shadow in "Tin Man (http://meeksp.livejournal.com/25746.html)." And what did people like best about the "Shine On" illustration? The lighting! It fit both the theme of the poem and the talent of the artist. Without following this project and being able to see a bunch of other examples, I'd have been picking only on the basis of the writing. The extra input yields better results.
Another aspect that meeksp touched on above is feedback. Some people leave insightful commentary: a nifty point to refine, a flaw that can be fixed by doing thus-and-such. This can lead to intricate discussions of story development, as did "Diapering Dragons (http://meeksp.livejournal.com/34596.html)." But what it really does, if you let it, is teach you how to look at art. You learn to see it more deeply if you are searching for what makes it work or not work. You read someone else's comments and look for that thing they mentioned to see if you agree or not. You hang out with this utterly cool bunch of people and talk about nifty pictures. So then the artist gets a lot of input, and you can see from the before-and-after images that it really makes a big difference. "Without Fail (http://meeksp.livejournal.com/27273.html)" is a good one for that comparison.
So that's why I love this project and encourage people to get involved in it. There are a lot of benefits all around, and it really helps turn crowdfunding into a close-knit, thriving community.
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Review
Date: 2011-07-22 06:36 pm (UTC)Story Sketches is one of my favorite projects. It offers a much-needed and, currently, unique service. I support this one by linking, not just to illustrations of my work, but most of the images in general. They are just fun to look at, and a lot of them depict other stories that I and my audience are reading anyhow.
One cool result of this is the depth effect. I'm learning what
Most recently, I chose a scene with very dramatic lighting for "Shine On (http://meeksp.livejournal.com/38326.html)." I picked this scene out of several possibilities, partly because I was impressed with how
Another aspect that
So that's why I love this project and encourage people to get involved in it. There are a lot of benefits all around, and it really helps turn crowdfunding into a close-knit, thriving community.