The Seaside: A Junior Narrative Illustration by Skyler Riordan (2018)

My narrative story is one of self-discovery and liberation. An unnamed, stressed out teenaged character, weighed down with the meticulousness and monotony of his life, is able to find solace in artistic expression and be freely curious and happy after a little adventure and soul-searching.

My production process began with a sketch. After having brainstormed a list of animals that I thought symbolized my animal well, I set off on a rather silly endeavor just for fun - create a conglomeration of all 10. My character, though restricted in my story, turns out to be an extroverted, fun-loving person, which is why I used a lot of community-centric and fun animals to symbolize him like a dog, a dolphin and a parrot and animals that symbolize peace and curiosity like a deer and a butterfly. I set my scene on a beach on a clear day, because it has always been a place I can return to to feel calm and carefree surrounded by both the beach culture of the surrounding town and the nature itself. I expected the result of my sketch to be too strange-looking to be usable, but the result ended up being rather adorable looking. I also thought this cutely mirrored my story, giving something a shot without judgement and having a pleasant result. Then, I placed an image of my sketch into Illustrator and traced my lines, and then improvised a simple beach background behind the character to ensure that the drawing was not too busy and colored with a “restful” Pantone color palette to set my tone. Finally, I added a movement stance in the leg (he was originally drawn stationery) and the sand castle to give the scene some action - the sandcastle symbolizes innocent childhood fun. The sailboat in the background, a gradient in the water, and the positioning of the mounds of sand are to play around with perspective in this piece.