Exercise: Using black and white

I decided to take inspiration from powerful, crashing waves and the effects they have on shaping the coastline. I looked back on photos I took on a particularly stormy day in Northumberland a few years ago as they popped into my head while I was creating my spider diagram. Also, as soon as I read the word ‘sea’, I pictured ‘The Great Wave Off Kanagawa’ by Hokusai, so I may take inspiration from this too.

It was enjoyable creating the line visual. I found that using shapes to represent the splashing water was challenging as it needed to look fluid but also strong and powerful. Usually, I steer clear of landscapes, so this was challenging.

I visited my local print shop to copy the line visual and invert the colours.

Looking at both images, I felt the cliff and rocks in the foreground may have been a little lost (perhaps there was too much detail, which didn’t help them stand out against the water).

First, I filled in areas with black. As I did this, I realised that having some areas with lines looks quite effective, but I wanted to introduce some more white shapes. The light was coming from the top right and there were obvious areas of water that were white with foam. I wanted to exaggerate the splash of the water. The cliff in the background could also have been made to look more jagged with some white shapes introduced.

After re-introducing some white shapes, I was pleased with the look of the water, especially as it splashed and pooled around the rock. I played around a lot with the cliff and rocks in the foreground and felt that the line of ‘light’ coming down from the top right looked most effective. Filling in the rocks with black meant they blended in too much with the water. I picked out some more highlights to try to show that they were rocks.

The cliff in the background also required lots of experimentation and I’m still not entirely happy with the result. I think the white does add some depth, and I deliberately picked shapes that might be exposed to the top right light, but I wonder if it would have looked better all black and more ‘decorative’/patterned as it was.

Comparing the original to the finished tonal image, I feel the use of black and white shapes has undoubtedly added depth to the image. It has allowed certain shapes to stand out – such as the crashing wave and the pool around the rock. This conveys the sense of erosive power that I wanted it to. I think this wave could have been made even more of a focal point if the cliff highlights were not there. The white shapes in the cliff may have confused the image slightly.

Other ‘graphic’ illustrators…