In the End Summer

An illustration I did for Devin Kenny's limited-run mixtape cassette. I hadn't seen a tape in years, so I couldn't remember how the inserts actually worked, embarrassingly.

The illustration is an elaborate Henry Darger reference, though maybe a bit too heavy on the sarcastic tone. I've previously shied away from using traced elements in my work because I've always felt that traced lines are inferior to freehanded lines, but actually the issue is just that you can never make a traced line look like it was drawn freehand, or vice-versa. If I keep it consistent and trace everything (like Darger did) then it works fine.

It also took a while to get the right color coordination, and I don't think people give Darger enough credit for the amount of design that went into his color combinations. I couldn't just directly copy his chords, since his drawings were more landscapes than anything else, and mine are more focused on the characters (the characters also take up more space since they don't have child proportions). My version was passable only because I used the sunflowers to obscure the pictorial space, so I didn't have to worry as much about color contrasts disturbing my composition.