My introduction to e.e. cummings began in AP English when Mrs. Wilkins read she being Brand out loud to the class.
Oh boy.
I came across the kingbird poem a few years later during my senior year of college. I didn’t do any thumbnails like one should, but rather was just keen on getting the image out of my head and onto the page.
the original below, a quick pencil sketch blocked in with acrylic, ink, and colored pencil
Quite a while of time went by before I revisited the image. I decided to start with obtaining some reference for the figure. While no photo reference helped with stylization and simplicity in the original, I did want a little more character in the face.
new sketch relying on the reference, perhaps a bit too heavily…
While I didn’t really like where this was going, I had the urge to try a more traditional approach, working a bit larger on illustration board, rendering with charcoal and acrylic. More of an exercise to warm up the ol’ hand skills, I guess.
Pretty soon, though, I ended up wanting to get back to some of the stylization and shapes of the original.
I was pretty satisfied with this combination of rendered form and flat areas of shape. The next step was to color digitally, a process that I have been doing more and more of recently – with mixed results.
Does it really convey what the poem is all about? Perhaps not as much as it could. However, I am happy with the progress of the image and the final result. Always fun to see how things develop and change.