Artist’s statement: “R” toys going extinct? illustration

My purpose of drawing this picture was to show the main idea of the article. At first, while considering the topic of technology’s influence on society, I had an idea to draw a mechanical heart to illustrate the future. I was thinking that, in the future, we may be able to live longer due to advances in medical technology. However, I soon realized this would not work because it did not have a strong enough connection with the piece’s specific theme, which was about iPads and the future of childhood, not health.

The article, ““R” Toys Going Extinct?,” is about the growing trend that children play more with iPads than toys nowadays. The article says, that Toys “R” Us stores “have been struggling due to increased demand in electronic devices by the children who had previously wanted toys,” which means children do not want toys anymore. Instead, almost all children have and want electronic devices, especially iPads.

While working on this project, I drew lots of sketches. There were various ideas popping out in my head, but I did not know which one is most suitable to create an illustration based on it. One of my drawings was a baby that tries to walk toward an iPad while stepping on toys. The baby would be stepping on toys because I wanted to show that even a baby is addicted to iPads. Recently, the technology developed a lot, so most people have smartphones or iPads. People spend too much time on mobile phones or iPads for playing games. They can not live without their phones or iPads (Nomophobia) because the games are stuck in people’s’ head. I thought it would work well for the topic because it showed that even a baby wants iPads more than toys. I drew this illustration, but afterwards I found out that this kind of artwork is very common, which means it is not unique or attractive. Thus, I changed my idea for the illustration.

My final plan was to draw toys in a trash can and a boy turning away from the trash can while holding a giant iPad. I thought it would be a good one because it shows a difference, which is an enormous iPad instead of a normal-sized one. Most of the common pictures have kids with normal iPads, but a gigantic iPad can show how much the boy is controlled by it. I also drew all the toys to be very clean, nice, and new in the garbage can because it looks more depressing. I also sketched a boy turning away from the trash can and holding an iPad with a satisfied or delighted face. He smiles even when all his toys are in the dustbin. His smile also illustrates that he is satisfied with iPads because he wants iPads more than his playthings.

After the sketching part, I coloured only the toys. Because I painted only toys, the playthings seem to pop out. This made sense because I knew that the toys are the main idea of this article. Everything else is black and white. When an artist wants to give impact of main things, they could put colours in some parts of the drawing, but not across all of it. Painting only the part that is the main focus can create a more memorable impact. Choice of hues matters, too. For example, when the artists draw mournful pictures, they purposely use black and white colour to express the sadness. Thus, if I only paint the toys, the rest looks more gloomy. I deliberately used the colours to portray the emotions. Bright colour creates a bright feeling, but the actual mood of the picture is sadness. I wanted to give emphasis on the toys in reverse. When people see this picture, they think the drawing looks happy, or rather, the toys look happy, but the toys are in the garbage can. That is part of this meaningful contrast. The contrast of beautiful and happy things thrown away and ignored. However, the sketch actually has the meaning of children wanting iPads more than toys, which is very sad. Thus, the contrasting colour depicts irony.

Illustrators need to produce inventive illustrations in response to others’ writing. Because I chose the role illustrator, I needed to work with the writer to produce the creative drawing. However, when I was working this, the biggest problem was that I needed to create a drawing in response to the writing. I kept trying to draw my own ideas which were not related to the writing. I kept ignoring the article because I thought I needed to use my own ideas. However, after I saw a few illustrations, I realized I should draw in response to the writing; I needed to create a related drawing, so that all the illustrations are interconnected to the feature.