Illustration:
Third Place, Most Professional

Jeff Hardin
Atlanta College of Art

The Three Evils

Artist's Statement: Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and Speak No Evil represents a set of my very recent illustrations. These pieces bring together drawing and photomontage. Each evil shows the combination of up to ten different photographs, layered color, and graphite pencil. The idea behind the evils has been with me since I was taking art classes at Macon State College. Since that time they have manifested themselves into this attempt of photo-realism. My objective was to make the viewer believe that they could view the subjects in real life. The mood of each piece is to thrust the viewer into a darker world, so I've kept the bright colors muted with an overlay of an olive green color, without betraying the realistic feel I was aiming at. This triptych represents everything I had in mind from the beginning, and I consider the evils among my top achievements at the Atlanta College of Art.

Adobe® Photoshop® was used to color most of the illustrations. The process involved scanning hand drawings and using color and layers, to create background and fore- ground emphasis. This sense of depth was very important to me in my work. The layers and brushes helped me bring this out in a very subtle manner. Starting with a a very basic black and white drawing, my work became a culmination of detailed drawing.