Line of Sight

Line of Sight

I decided to look at transport in India because it is known for over crowding and it is very different from the safety obsessed British transport. It is full of characters and gives me a very interesting subject to draw!

I have found some reference images that I think will be useful: 

My rough thumbnails exploring how the line of sight could travel: 

If I were to improve this piece and explore this idea further I could try to use water colours and pen keeping George Butlers work in mind. I would bring the front van closer and move the vans more to the left so that most of the background scenery is in the top right hand corner so that the line of sight travels in that direction. At the moment I feel that the left hand background disrupts this line of sight as it causes a distraction allowing the eye to wander to the left.
http://www.georgebutler.org/commercial/g2-cover

Compositionally I looked to employ a strong line of sight diagonally from bottom left to top right as well as considering other compositional mechanics such as view point, depth and frame. The viewpoint is facing the truks and the background as this allows for them to be the centre point of the image, as they are the key element: transport. The frame also helps to do this and allows a small amount of the city in the background to be in view and the important elements of the woman in the bottom left; the baby and the waving hand- seeking refuge in trying to get transportation away from the city. I created depth by using various objects in foreground, mid ground and background and tried to overlap these elements. However if I were to do this piece again I would overlap them more such as overlapping the woman over the front truck more.

The synthesis of reference material and my own imagination was fun to do as it was good to be able to create an image in your imagination and develop a narrative with it, but then be able to make the image look realistic by using reference photographs to make each element believable. My chosen mode of transport was an Indian truck as I found this really visually interesting and it is something today in Britain we would never see. I kept the environment and landscape in keeping with the indian theme and used an indian skyline to inspire my city background. However I used an imagined narrative to support the transport as I wanted the trucks to be transporting people away from the city and had the woman trying to get on with her baby. I used planes to direct the eye towards the city in the line of sight diagonally from bottom left to top right. I wanted to generate a feeling of urgency, excitement and danger but also convey an atmosphere of heat and spirituality- which I tried to do by overlaying an image I had previously drawn which looks like someone in traditional dress overlooking the city and watching from above - god like. (I used Photoshop and layers to create this overlap.)