You Are Here

IF (Illustration Friday) 7/14/14, the topic was Invisible.  The idea I had for this topic came pretty easily, and quickly, which is good because I had very little time to work on it.  I decided on depicting the Cheshire Cat form Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland' primarily due to his ability to become invisible, or partially visible, at will.  For this piece I wanted to capture his mischievous nature, while keeping with the theme and keeping him "invisible".  The main concept of the piece was inspired by a movie poster I saw once for the movie "Premonition", which the leading protagonist played by Sandra Bullock is recreated out of tree branches.  It's quite a masterful work of art, and it inspired the final piece seen here.  I added my own flare, and utilized the background (mainly the moon), to represent Cheshire's smile trademark smile.  I was having some trouble with this piece because of the amount of negative space I had on the bottom of illustration, and as I was adding foliage, and mushrooms, I decided that I could utilize the area to produce stronger story telling elements than just creating a static illustration.  It was at this point that I added the silhouette of Alice in the foreground atop a mushroom to capture her interaction with Cheshire.  I imagined that at this point in the story Alice would probably be in disarray, and severely frustrated with the lack of 'logic' Wonderland had to offer.  I thought about what if the Cheshire Cat appeared before her, and she asked him: "Where am I?"  Only to respond "You are Here."  It seemed fitting, and so did the title.  The piece is entirely digital done in Painter, with some manipulations done in Photoshop.