Pressure: A Junior Narrative Illustration by Matthew Shearer (2013)

In my Narrative Illustration I depicted a damn that had cracked and let all the water come spilling out. I depicted the water as different words that describe feelings that my main character was feeling in my graphic novel when he quit his job. His job was causing a lot of stress for him and he didn't have the courage to change his situation. The dam represents how my character was suppressing his emotions. The fact that it broke represents him finally letting out his emotions and making a change. The graffiti on the walls of the dam show what most people can see on the outside of me character. It says self control because he doesn't feel that it is acceptable to let out all of ones emotions. He struggles with this throughout the story. The process of creating this illustration for me was difficult. I am always more satisfied with my sketch of what I want it to look like than what it turns out to be. For this project I used Illustrator. I used the Pen tool to create the shapes and fill them in. It was a pretty long process to get all the pieces lined up and looking how I pictured them in my head.