Critical Review
Illustrations That Create and Complement the Story
Photo credit: Jerry McCrea/The Star Ledger
In Blues Journey, Walter Dean Myers' text describes the daily struggle of the working man (or woman), the injustice of the black experience and the simple unfairness of life. Christopher Myers' illustrations mirror that experience, whether it be his image of labourers swinging axes , children looking out the door of their tenement building or people in despair with their heads in their hands. Myers has captured strong emotions, through shadows, facial expressions and how his subjects relate to one another such as sharing a bed or putting a hand on a shoulder.
Simplicity and Complexity
Photo credit: Selena Jensen
According to the inside flap of the book, the artwork, which includes the colours of black, brown, blue and white, was created with very limited materials - "blue ink, white paint, and brown paper bags" (Myers, 2003). The artwork and materials used reflect the surface simplicity but hidden complexity of Walter Dean Myers' blues lyrics themselves. For example, these lyrics are accompanied by an image of a young boy holding a sign protesting the lynching of a man at the same site a day earlier. Without Christopher Myers' illustration, these verses would be ambiguous at best for some children.
Strange fruit high in a big oak tree
Strange fruit high in a big oak tree
You can see what it did to Willie,
can you see what it did to me?
Strange fruit high in a big oak tree
Strange fruit high in a big oak tree
You can see what it did to Willie,
can you see what it did to me?
Illustrations and Style That Tell a Story
Just as the blues represent sombre subjects and human suffering, so do Myers' illustrations. They are haunting, intense and rich in colour and content. The hues themselves are deep, just like the blues, whether an emotion or a song. Myers talks about the fact that the blues as a musical art form have a "very spare and rigid structure that allows you to express so much." (TeachingBooks.net, p.2) . He has created a style appropriate to the story through the restricted use of materials in Blues Journey. This technique reflects how blues musicians are often limited in their equipment due to economic reasons (TeachingBooks.net, p.2). The methods used in creating the illustrations for Blues Journey included the use of rubber stamps because he wanted his artwork to be as simple and low tech as possible.
Illustrations That Define Mood, Pacing and Tension
The dominance of the colour blue and its variants creates a sombre mood, while the use of warm brown and white brings light and contrast to the illustrations. Although the palette itself appears simple and limited - just like the simple sound and repetitive lyrics and chords that accompany the blues - both illustrations and text are multi-layered and complex. For example, the image of the labourers swinging axes is accompanied by the following text which at first reading is simply about hard manual labour. However, a closer examination reveals the enormous divide between rich and poor. In the image, the foreman is supervising off in the distance and in the text, Walter Dean Myers alludes to the idea that a rich (presumably white) man will never understand the multiple sufferings of poor black men.
I'm busting sod on the Parchman's
if the sun don't lay me low
You know I'm busting sod on Parchman's,
if the sun don't lay me low
There's nine kinds of dying
a rich man will never know
if the sun don't lay me low
You know I'm busting sod on Parchman's,
if the sun don't lay me low
There's nine kinds of dying
a rich man will never know
The mood of the book itself is haunting and evokes strong themes of prejudice, racism, poverty and suffering. Blues Journey is exactly what it says it is: a journey or time line of the African-American experience from past to present, from slavery, to segregation to civil rights. However, even though Blues Journey recounts a sad story, there is still joy in some verses and illustrations. Images of a boy joyously playing the tambourine, a singer belting it out at the microphone and kids dancing in the street remind the reader of human resilience and perseverance.
The Reading Experience: Layout, Design and Text
Blues Journey is somewhat unique as it is presented as a children's picture book that contains mature themes ranging from love and loss to crime and death. The book itself is less than the standard 32 page picture book and is laid out in wide horizontal pages. The text, identified as Garamond 3 Bold, is placed in a variety of locations on the page: from center to corner to top and bottom. However, the verses are always presented as a block and this provides continuity to the book.
Artwork Style
Myers' illustrations possess an interesting combination of painterly and graphic characteristics. Many images have a photographic quality due to his use of shadows to create depth and contours. The illustrations are reminiscent of old black and white photos that have been treated with a blue wash. Again, when examining whether the pictures are realistic or abstract, Myers seems to combine both elements. While the images of humans are realistic, their surroundings are abstract and minimalist, which focuses the reader's attention on the people and not on their environment.
Visual Elements: Line, Shape, Colour, Composition and Texture
Interestingly, people in Myers' illustrations are drawn with curves and contours, but it is the objects the the background that are often angular and linear, such as the iron fences in the illustrations above. Is Myers depicting the vulnerable and fragile human in an unforgiving world? The colour, composition and texture of Myers' images definitely set them apart from other children's book illustrations. As previously mentioned, Myers used a simple palette of black, brown, blue and white. He connects colour to composition by juxtaposing blue in the foreground and brown in the background or vice versa. Texture is presented in an unusual way through his use of everyday paper bags for the colour brown. Even the fiber and grain of the paper bags can be seen in the illustrations.