Slow, slow Slowvember ... children's right to roam

[Meta]

It is pretty late to come up with a Slowvember topic. I've been thinking on a topic in the first week without liking my ideas (and was busy with the style exploration and daily struggle). Last week I remembered an article I've read one or two years ago and thought this could be a topic. Without properly working on it, I spent some time thinking about it during the last days and finally found the article. I will now start to sketch and doodle for it.

The article is called "Children lost the right to roam in just 4 Generations", and was based on this article from The Daily Mail (UK), as I found out now. It shows how the range of unaccompanied wandering of children deminished within the generations. I will take the four generation kids at the age of eight years, and design a spread with text quotes from the articles to give a feel of their daily life. I am not sure if I should pick exactly the four kids mentioned in the text, or make up another three or four, based on research of what was common (and is today).

Here's the map from The Daily Mail that was published in the original article:

I've spent a lot of time on my dream portfolio and analyzis. Worked through the Slowvember art questions finally! I have an idea about the technique I want to use (develop), based on my second dream portfolio: linework with blocked in color, dynamic composition, and a self contained story within the image. I have to learn a lot about color! Critiques welcome!

[chrisaakins]

@Meta THat is a really cool graphic and very interesting. I would love assignments like this one too. I am a huge nerd and map fan. I will pore all day over a good map.

[Pamela Fraley]

@Meta super interesting idea to illustrate this. I remember reading that article and being blown away by it.

[Meta]

A bit of progress from the last days. I didn't manage to update this daily as I would have liked to. First I made al ot of notes with a mix of english and germen which I'm not gonna publish here I decided to start a century ago and do jumps of a third of a century to end up in today within four periods. this is 1919, 1953, 1986 and 2019. I found out about typical games children played/are playing in that period and about places they used to go.
I searched for reference images for clothes and environment and toys and playgrounds and so on. While finding the reference, I already got an idea about which scenes I would like to pick.
Then I went to my sketchbook and sorted out how to arrange all these multiple pieces in one composition (magazine style). So here's a bunch of sketchbook pages:

After some thumbnails I thought, why continuing drawing thumbs? I already got something that would work. But I did indeed find much better ways to arrange all the elements in a well legible way.

For each of the four periods, I've picked one scene with kids playing, which will be drawn either in a sort of album photo in the air of its time. And, second, a child on his way to some activity typical in that time.

Next was studies of kids, objects and sceneries (cherrypicking those I prefer for the next steps), along with some thumbnails for composition of that element (to be continued):

Still misses the second half of the 1980s kid and the entire contemporary one.

[braden H]

@Meta I'm loving all these concept sketches! You've really captured the eras you're goin' for

[demotlj]

This topic is fascinating to me (I heard a podcast about similar studies) and I love watching your development and process to illustrate the concept. I can't wait to see what you do with it.

[charitymunoz]

@Meta I remember reading the very article you were mentioning that got you started. I found it fascinating too and it's something that we often comment on from my Dad's experience to my kids' or even from my husband's since he's from Bolivia, vs mine. I'm loving the poses and feel of your sketches, especially the kids building forts and playing marbles. Great ideas! I'm looking forward to watching you develop them!

[TessaW]

I love this topic! I've read articles similar to this in the past, and it would be so great to see this concept illustrated. I'll be following along.

[Meta]

Sorry to not update this ... Having the choice to either write something here, or draw, I ended up choosing drawing most of the time. However, I made my submission already. I kept it simple and finished only one of the four generations. All the others are in progress. I hope to manage to post some WIP, and otherwise I'll show at least the end result. Although I would have appreciated some feedback for my Slowvember piece ... Anyways, thank you!

[Meta]

I'll still update this threat an call it Slowcember

I wanted to share a bit how I struggled to find a way to draw the lineart. I thought, the best would be to draw directly into photoshop. But I don't manage to make a drawing I like there. It's alway so tense and I don't get to where I want. Can this be due to the use of a conventional graphic tablet? I could imagine that the workflow on a screen tablet is much smoother, but maybe I'm wrong?

Next I tried drawing with ballpoint pen, ink roller pen, traditional pen and ink ... without the satisfying outcome.

The main trouble with these techniques is that I cannot correct anything, once the line is on paper. I could have worked with one of the below, but there are some details in each which I'd like to redo. I did the last two on transparent paper, so I picked my brand new prismacolor pencil (you don't usually get them here in Europe!) and drew it again. On this paper, I can completely erase lines without any remains. Perfect!

Next time, I'll do the sketch on an extra sheet, so I don't need to erase any lines which should not be there. I just had to find out if this lineart works when colorizing in photoshop. I did the 1986 drawings first, and I'm quite happy with the results.

Here are the two new drawings from the last days, already joined together:

edit: How can I change the name of this topic?

[braden H]

@Meta said in Slow, slow Slowvember ... children's right to roam:

I could imagine that the workflow on a screen tablet is much smoother

screen tablet vs a regular ol slab of plastic tablet is like night and day. It would definitely help your lineart look more natural out of photoshop.

Really neat project, by the way Lovin' how it's goin