Sport Illustration, made for New York Times Sports - Art Director, Wayne Kamidoi-
One of the aims was to point out that Sochi is the first sub-tropical host to the Winter Games. It is on the Black Sea, and has palm trees in the city center. Rising around the city is the mountain range from the Caucasus, where the skiing and nordic events will take place.
I did to sketches:
A-The grace of athletic gesture captured in a sort of "galà", set in the main stadium, that has not roof, so that we can ideally see both mountains and sea.
The first with a female skater on foreground, that drawings on ice the five olympic rings.
The sides of the olympic rink work like stage wings and at the same are ideally opened and fused to the landscape with palms and sea. The athletes seem to be like captured as statues during the sportive action
Snowing night, cheerful atmosphere, rays of light reflect on the sea, sailboats and mountains with flags on the background.
C-The power and the contrast between warm and cool
A very dramatic perspective view from the top of mountain, down to the Olympic Park, near the sea.The image had to be spectacular. Three athletes, rushing from top left angle
like if they are landing on the olympic park.
The colour contrast, from a cool foreground to a warmer background must highlight the different temperatures.
They choosed the C version.
The size has changed in order to give more room for any needs.
Going ahead with color I found the ice-rink too poor and without any appeal.
So I couldn't resist to add the real Sochi Olympic ice stadium, full of crowd, surrounded by palm trees, near the sea. Never mind about the proportions between athletes and crowd...the sport is the star now!
The second change was the position of the snowboarder. I moved him down to the right to better balance the composition.
Becuse of they were looking for a vintage style, as in http://bit.ly/Z0i5Mt I have been really hesitant about the choice of colors.
The original sketch was good but I was looking for something different, a bit unusual....
I tryed a red sky (my preferred) or a neutral foreground and waited for the response.
and the winner is....
Thanks to NYT Sport Art Director-Wayne Kamidoy and to all the staff. It has been a great pleasure to work with them.
Published on newspaper Feb-05-2014
