Hide the Body by Mead Schaeffer.

Hide The Body by Mead Schaeffer

Focus and Composition

The face is the major point of contrast in this illustration which makes it our focal point and it contrasts with our other focal point of the foot on the floor. Every light shape in the painting is pointing upwards towards her from the bottom right where we see the body and contrasting circle shape of the hat.  You can also see the lines pointing back to her on the hips and  her dress line

He keepss our eyes only in this area by obscuring everything else away from our eye. For example the bottom left corner has a corner of a chair or bed frame peering out of the darkness which helps create the jagged shape of the negative space of the light on the left side to keep our eye drifting too much away from her. Obviously the ground to her right is lit but he uses this negative space to keep our attention here and for the vaules in the composition to feel dramatic and nerve wrecking.  so we only have the main details in our attention.

To create visual balance to the big strong shapes on the right he adds a sense of normalcy with two light switches upright and the book shelf built into the wall.

Narrative

Her reaction feels defensive and surprised, having just killed someone who she must now hide. The overturned painting and chair behind her along with the knocked over books obviously contrast with the candle holder, the light switches to the left and the mirror behind her in terms of order and disorder. There has been a struggle here and the little hints of normalcy in the room create the tension since these elements blend in and fall back to support the main focal point.  He accomplishes more by showing us less so that our imagination can fill in the blanks of what happened here and in what condition he lies. Only using the expression of a dead foot to again point upwards towards her.

Palette

Mead chooses an analogous color scheme the range from dark browns, grey and dull greens, and light pinks and deep reds reds. Her skin feels like a dull yellow green again hinting at her emotional state. The drape she is holding to cover the body is the strongest color contrast with her greenish yellow skin and is obviously alluding to the murder that just took place.

The contrast in the details of the books to the right are also interesting. He uses red in the bottom section in order to feel like it fits in with the overall color scheme. note that he didn't use very much green in this area cause it would drag your eye away from the composition. he had to make this part feel like it was a part of the whole even though it could have easily pulled you away since it is not well lit at all. He then offsets the color of the drape by placing the green grey hat and foot at the bottom of the painting.

Value

The strong negative space created by the light shapes in mead's work is always a feature I really like and here he uses it to almost make it feel like it is either symbolic or analogous to the film. The light shape feels like it is cutting across the page like a lightning bolt or it sits in the page like broken jagged glass that could prick you from any angle. It fits well with the subject matter and gives you an indication of her mental state of being on edge and hostile.

He makes the different objects pop forward by using pin points of lights in the bigger shape designs to show overlapping in forms. Notice the light is hitting right on the tip of his shoe, the bottom of the chair, at her waist and right behind both of her arm pits. They are also on the ornamentation on the wall to the left and give us a nice hint of the texture of the wall. This is actually the only real hints of texture on the wall but along with that and the color its enough for our imagination to fill in the details.