Illustrating Omaha’s A1 with watercolor
Ananda Walden Spadt announced proudly today to her Facebook friends:
Ananda is on the front page.
And what a wonderful illustration it is:
Traditionally, illustration as lead art on A1 has been a tough sale in most shops. But as we’re pushing more and more feature-oriented stories out front — especially on days when breaking news isn’t all that broken — leading the page with an occasional illustration seems like a great idea.
The story appears to contain lots of folks who’d rather not be photographed for publication. (Full disclosure: We’ve not read the entire thing yet. Find it here.) And using art of the main peg — a guy who faces felony charges after he ran up nearly $15 million in gambling debt — might be viewed by some readers as piling on. Even more reason to go with an illo.
A closer look at Ananda’s illustration:
There’s definitely some Photoshop going on. We’re not sure whether Ananda used actual watercolors here or if she painted electronically.
We think illustration can be a great choice for A1. We think live art is better, but then again, we also think breaking news is a better story choice for A1.
But when the daily budget is a little soft on breaking stuff and you’re leading with a feature story or something that’s not entirely shootable — why not illustrate?
Here’s an example we’ve been using for ages in our slide show:
How else were we going to illustrate that lead story? With a three-column mug shot of the president? No, the fabulously talented — and scary-fast — Mark Marturello created this painterly montage of war images n order to get at the heart of the story. We felt it was a successful page.
During the stock market meltdown last September, we were surprised to find this leading the next day’s Kansas City Star:
Now, that one — by illustrator Hector Casanova — seems more like an editorial cartoon than a straight illustration. But, y’see, it works. On this particular day, at least. What’s the alternative? A large photo of stockbrokers slapping their own foreheads? A six-column fever chart?
The Star’s Charles Gooch told us that sure enough, the Star didn’t have anything else that day worthy of being above the fold:
Our new editor, Mike Fannin, wants to be bold and daring in our attempt to grab the attention of our readers. We don’t often have this kind of opportunity, so we took it.
Back to our pal Ananda, though…
A 2006 graduate of the University of Nebraska, she spent time at the Kitsap Sun in Washington state and then the Hartford Courant before returning home last year to marry her sweetie.
She answered a few questions for us…
Q. That is watercolor? Or did you do it electronically?
A. Watercolor effect was done electronically by layering different photos of textures in Photoshop.
The watercolor-ish style is one that I’ve been wanting to try for a while now. I don’t usually have a moody features page so this was the my first opportunity to try it out. It didn’t occur to me that I was turning The Thinker into a gambler until after I was finished. Oh, well.
Q. How unusual is it for y’all to put an illo on page one? Was that a difficult sale? Or was it intended for another front and got promoted to A1?
A. I haven’t seen an illo run on the front page in the time I’ve been here (about 3 months). It wasn’t too hard of a sell but people seemed a little surprised at the idea. It was a case that we really wanted to run the gambling story we were hitting walls with all photo opportunities. I thought an illustration could best match the tone of the article and the editors agreed.
Q. What percentage of your work, would you say, is illustration and what percentage is design?
A. It’s pretty much 50/50 illustration and design. I’m happy as a clam doing both/either.
Q. How long have you been in Omaha? Are you enjoying being back home?
A. I’ve been back in Omaha since just before Thanksgiving. I’ve seen my family more in the past week than I had in the two and a half years I had lived away. I forgot how bitterly cold it gets here and I am looking forward to the spring.
A few samples of her work in Bremerton:
See more in Ananda’s online portfolio.