Are you telling a story?

This is one of the many things I learned in graduate school under direction of Bunny Carter. This is basically the diagram she showed us- and here I am recreating it for you!

1) Congratulations. You made a drawing of some guy. He may be rendered really well, and handsome to boot. But frankly, it's rather boring. I am terribly guilty of drawing like this. Just a happy guy standing there saying, "hi!".

2) Now happy guy is sitting on a bench. OK, now there is a little more substance. This means he's probably outside, he's sitting which is arguably more interesting than standing. Still boring, but it's less boring than before.

3) Oh boy, now theres a dog! Norman Rockwell is credited of saying, "If a drawing is going badly, put a dog in it. If its going really bad, put a bandage on his paw.". But really, now we have more than one character, and so naturally it becomes more interesting.

4) Character interaction! The most important part of an illustration is when the characters interact with something or eachother.  We can begin to come up with some plausible ideas for who these characters are.

5) And finally, environment is added. Emotions are in the faces.We are finally telling a visual story!

So keep this in mind next time you're tempted on just drawing a cute little bunny. What is he doing, what is his mood, what time of day is it, etc. Answering these simple questions will do so much for your work! (and once you've got the basics down, don't forget value, light and shadow, color, etc!)