Exercise:Reading an image
Exercise: Reading an image
This exercise is all about analysing an image and gathering interpretations from it.
The first thing I noticed when looking at the image is the colour, red and orange are powerful colours that provide for a threatening and dangerous foundation for the illustration. In terms of colour psychology red is considered the colour of danger given its real world connections to blood. If the dragon was bright yellow it would not be as scary.
One thing I really like is the contrast of the lightning, the cave is dark and empty however we then have the light beaming from the child’s torch, this works really well at enhancing the danger, the sharp contrast exaggerates the darkness, especially for a child darkness is scary, it is where we think monsters are going to get us. However the artist has chosen to use a dark blue instead of black which I think was a decision to keep the illustration child friendly. Brighter colours are often used in children’s art because they are more playful and engaging for a child’s brain, even though dark blue isn’t a bright colour necessarily it is a lot brighter than black that’s why I feel it was a good substitute.
In terms of scale the dragon is noticeably bigger than the two children even with the fact they are slouched and sleeping. This works well as we are naturally afraid of things that are bigger than us as it is a sign of power. The illustration would not have the same impact if the dragon was small as it would seem like the children weren’t in danger. I think that is the main focus of the image, every decision made is to create a sense of danger that the children are in.
The dragon is definitely the main focus of the image and rightly so, they are the biggest and the boldest so it makes sense. The dragon is the element that catches our eye and then we lead into the left where we see the children huddled and scared. That way we already have established what the children are scared of. The dragon is also placed off entered, this is a trick that artists use to make their art more appealing, the brain naturally notices items that are not centred as we pick up imperfections. Having the dragon big and off centered means they are the first thing that catches our eye.
The children are entering from the far left hand side, from the overall structure of this image we can tell this is the dragons cave as they dominate the whole thing, from all the broken shields and hidden treasure we can take a pretty good guess that this is their home. Now the children are small compared to the dragon and the whole image in general, because of this they’re not ‘welcome’ they’re a disturbance to the image itself. Furthermore the placement of the children further pushes this idea because they’re far to the left and and out of the way. In context the children are stumbling across the dragon in the cave and this is reflected in the structure.
This exercise is all about analysing an image and gathering interpretations from it.
The first thing I noticed when looking at the image is the colour, red and orange are powerful colours that provide for a threatening and dangerous foundation for the illustration. In terms of colour psychology red is considered the colour of danger given its real world connections to blood. If the dragon was bright yellow it would not be as scary.
One thing I really like is the contrast of the lightning, the cave is dark and empty however we then have the light beaming from the child’s torch, this works really well at enhancing the danger, the sharp contrast exaggerates the darkness, especially for a child darkness is scary, it is where we think monsters are going to get us. However the artist has chosen to use a dark blue instead of black which I think was a decision to keep the illustration child friendly. Brighter colours are often used in children’s art because they are more playful and engaging for a child’s brain, even though dark blue isn’t a bright colour necessarily it is a lot brighter than black that’s why I feel it was a good substitute.
In terms of scale the dragon is noticeably bigger than the two children even with the fact they are slouched and sleeping. This works well as we are naturally afraid of things that are bigger than us as it is a sign of power. The illustration would not have the same impact if the dragon was small as it would seem like the children weren’t in danger. I think that is the main focus of the image, every decision made is to create a sense of danger that the children are in.
The dragon is definitely the main focus of the image and rightly so, they are the biggest and the boldest so it makes sense. The dragon is the element that catches our eye and then we lead into the left where we see the children huddled and scared. That way we already have established what the children are scared of. The dragon is also placed off entered, this is a trick that artists use to make their art more appealing, the brain naturally notices items that are not centred as we pick up imperfections. Having the dragon big and off centered means they are the first thing that catches our eye.
The children are entering from the far left hand side, from the overall structure of this image we can tell this is the dragons cave as they dominate the whole thing, from all the broken shields and hidden treasure we can take a pretty good guess that this is their home. Now the children are small compared to the dragon and the whole image in general, because of this they’re not ‘welcome’ they’re a disturbance to the image itself. Furthermore the placement of the children further pushes this idea because they’re far to the left and and out of the way. In context the children are stumbling across the dragon in the cave and this is reflected in the structure.
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