The Making of an Illustration for The Crab and the Fox

The Crab and the Fox

A crab, after sunning himself on the seashore, decided it was time to eat. Tired of the predictable fare on the beach, he ventured farther afield into the rushes to see what delectable treat might be waiting. Suddenly he came face to face with a fox, who had the same idea about meal time. He swiftly opened his mouth and the crab found himself wedged firmly between the fox’s teeth. At that moment, he cried out “Wretched crab that I am – had I only stayed in familiar territory to feast, my fate would not be sealed in the jaws of a fox!”

When we look elsewhere for contentment, we may be disappointed.

In this post I document my creation of an illustration from one of Aesop's fables. Join me in my studio and see how I get the project under way from start to finish. This blog is part of my series describing the process of making illustrations for 15 selected Aesop's Fables. Today I talk about the fox and the crab. It is a story about not taking chances--certainly a lesson I have recently dismissed in my own life.

When I begin the initial sketch for a layout, I try to be vigilant about avoiding the most obvious solutions for a composition. Then I chose which part of the story best expresses the mood of the fable. I like to vary my perspectives when I do a series of paintings to keep the pictures interesting and different. For this fable, I toyed around with the fox running away through the rushes with the unfortunate crab dangling out of its mouth. I liked the action of the fox running. As my first idea, I was skeptical. Was that too predictable?

At this point, I put away the design to sit overnight in my head.

I wondered how it would look if we zoomed in on the meeting of the two. At this point, the fox has flipped over the poor crab, but hasn't taken it yet. I didn't like this version - I needed to get to the end of the fable and really link story and image together.

Fox with crab turned over - wasn't right yet

Finally, I played with the idea of a close up, only from the side. I wanted to capture the instant the crab is picked up as he wails about his fate. I was also intrigued by how a crab is actually put together. The best part of any project is challenging myself to figure out how something works. In this case, the object of study is a crab with all its jointed legs – and its eyes. I had never considered crab anatomy before this piece (except when feasting on King Crab on New year's Eve).

The finished piece - I painted over the drawing shown above on Crescent Illustration board (watercolor and gouache)

In the end, I know I made this illustration a lot more work than it had to be. But I was determined to capture detail as realistically as I could. The best part of the finished illustration was painting the fox's eyes. Have you ever really looked at an animal's eye sideways? It was time to push past my fear of rendering a glossy eye in watercolor. It had to be just right; there's not a lot of room for errors in watercolor. Unlike digital painting, you can't just scrap a layer. The best way to do this was to break down every highlight and shadow into shapes. The white highlight? If you look at it, it appears to be a saucepan. By painting what you see rather than relying on you think you know, you will have a great advantage as you work on your realistic drawing and painting skills.

Illustrations © Johanna Westerman 2016